Staying dry

Dry suit recommendations?

1. Get one. A dry suit will let you kayak comfortably in cold, windy, and rainy weather, and in cold water, and can save your life if you end up in the water.

2. Get one which is loose enough so you can wear several layers of insulating clothing under it.  Don't go for a trim stylish look.  It should look baggy when you aren't wearing a lot of clothing under it.

3. Get one which has a pee zipper which is appropriate for your sex.  If you don't, you will be very very very sorry.

4. Get one which has dry socks, not ankle gaskets.  You feet will be wet and/or in the water most of the time while kayak fishing.  If you get a dry suit which has ankle gaskets, your feet will be cold much of the time.  If you get a dry suit which has dry socks, you can layer up enough warm fuzzy socks under the dry socks to keep your feet warm and comfortable even in very cold weather and water conditions. Get footgear to wear over the dry socks which is several sizes larger than your street shoe size.  Tight footgear will make your feet get cold.

5. Get one which has a diagonal front entry zipper.  Don't get one which has a zipper which runs from shoulder to shoulder across your back unless you have tried it on and are sure that you can zip and unzip the zipper by yourself.  Most people need to have a companion zip and unzip a rear entry zipper.

6. Get one made of a breathable fabric. It's worth the extra money.  A non-breathable drysuit is a bit like wearing a plastic bag, and a lot of perspiration will condense inside it.

7. Get one in a bright color.  You want to be visible, whether you are sitting in your kayak or swimming in the water.

8. Get one with latex gaskets.  Latex gaskets will keep you completely dry.  Some manufacturers make drysuits which have neoprene gaskets or neck collar, which they call "semi-dry" or paddling suits.  And some kayak anglers prefer neoprene gaskets because they are more comfortable.  But neoprene gaskets won't keep out water for more than a few seconds.  So suck it up and get used to latex gaskets.  If you have a thick neck, a latex gasket may seem tight the first couple of times you wear it, but it will quickly stretch and become more comfortable.  In addition to kayak fishing in a drysuit, I snorkel and speargun for northern pike in a drysuit in Montana, and after a day of either, I can drive home in the clothing I was wearing under the drysuit.

9. Most drysuits have a neoprene collar which covers their latex neck gasket, and neoprene cuffs which cover their latex wrist gaskets.  These protect the latex gaskets from the sun, and will extend the life of the gaskets, and are worth having.  Less expensive drysuits may not have those protective covers.

There are a lot of drysuit manufacturers, but you can't go wrong with Kokatat.  They make great drysuits, and they stand behind their products.

Wow great write up Pete. I would add that I have the Kokatat Gore-Tex Supernova Angler Paddling Suit with the neoprene gaskets. I have worn it during two surf zone classes where I got thrashed around in the surf so many times I lost count. Both times, at the end of the day  I only noticed a little dampness around my neck. I am very pleased with my Kokatat suit.

Thanks Pete, I have been googling things to purchase for kayaking and was trying to decide whether or not to purchase a drysuit. Thanks for the great write up.

Mike

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Wow great write up Pete. I would add that I have the Kokatat Gore-Tex Supernova Angler Paddling Suit with the neoprene gaskets. I have worn it during two surf zone classes where I got thrashed around in the surf so many times I lost count. Both times, at the end of the day  I only noticed a little dampness around my neck. I am very pleased with my Kokatat suit.

I have the same dry suit that I sent in this winter to replace the wrist gaskets and a warranty inspection that found a problem with the fabric.  They sent me a new suit at no cost

Great writeup by pmmpete.

I'd also quibble about the necessity of a latex neck gasket, as neoprene has never been an issue for me.

Good info. I'll be spending some day OTW in the great PNW where the water is colder and have been looking at drysuits. Thanks for the write up.

You also need to consider the CONS of dry suits when making a decision like this.  I was all for dry suits for years, but I own both a wetsuit and a Kokatat dry suit, and now, IMHO a dry suit is not the better/safer/most comfortable option, it's simply a different option.  YMMV.

You also need to consider the CONS of dry suits when making a decision like this.  I was all for dry suits for years, but I own both a wetsuit and a Kokatat dry suit, and now, IMHO a dry suit is not the better/safer/most comfortable option, it's simply a different option.  YMMV.

Would be interested to hear more. I own both and at least as far as "most comfortable", there is no comparison IMHO, except maybe on the hottest day of the year.

I started off with a wetsuit and I definitely don't miss the feeling or smell.  Dry suit just got too hot for me, so now I'm using the NRS sidewinder bibs with a paddle jacket and love it.  I understand the risks of wearing this and not saying I recommend this for others, but if you get hot easily, dry suit may not be for you. 

I started off with a wetsuit and I definitely don't miss the feeling or smell.  Dry suit just got too hot for me, so now I'm using the NRS sidewinder bibs with a paddle jacket and love it.  I understand the risks of wearing this and not saying I recommend this for others, but if you get hot easily, dry suit may not be for you.

+1 on a dry suit being too damn hot! As for the smell of my wetsuit... brand new smell with a hint of saltwater , no skunk... I rinse after every use and completely dry inside and out, and TLW washes it after every 4th use.

Would be interested to hear more. I own both and at least as far as "most comfortable", there is no comparison IMHO, except maybe on the hottest day of the year.

Comfort is but one part of the matrix of what makes better immersion gear and not one of the more important parts, really.  Subjectively, I don't find either my wetsuit or my dry suit very comfortable after an hour or two, but between them, I least like the feeling that my neck and wrists are being squeezed out of a toothpaste tube, which is how the drysuit gaskets feel.

It doesn't take the hottest days to make a dry suit feel like a sauna, BTW - you just have to guess wrong on the base layers, even on a cool-ish day.  So far I haven't seen anyone manage to peel off a base layer while in a kayak, but I'm not everywhere all the time.  I can dump water on me to cool down in either suit, but it's a much less effective technique in the dry suit.  I need to dump more water more often to cool down.

Dry suits definitely stink worse than a wetsuit if they aren't properly cleaned.  It's not a big deal to clean either of them - Nikwax, a bathtub, and a few hours of soaking does it for both of them, but my wetsuit also cleans up nicely if I wear it into the shower when I get home - which I do, every time.  You're supposed to wear a full-body rash guard under a wetsuit, BTW, and that's what helps keep the neoprene fresh, otherwise it's like wearing the same pair of underdrawers day after day, and GAG!

I poked a hole in my dry suit with an errant hook.  I could poke a hole through my wetsuit, too, but I punctured the dry suit way more easily than I could penetrate the wetsuit.  IMHO, that makes them more fragile.  (Kokatat repaired it at no cost.  Yea! Kokatat for that, but I still, to this day, don't believe it should have been punctured so easily.).

I don't like that you can't "customize" a dry suit to fit your extremities unless you want to go full-on custom.  Big feet?  You're going to have to buy a suit that may be much too big and pretty darned uncomfortable on you.  Little feet and even the stock socks are going to bunch up in your boots and feel nearly painful - especially for anyone who pedals around all day.

And as part of that, I don't like Kakatat's warranty coverage on customized products.  I have a pair of paddling pants that Kokatat recommended I order with larger than stock socks.  That voided any warranty on the pants, even having been custom made by Kokatat.  (I didn't need the larger, Bozo the Clown socks, by-the-way, and was able to order an off-the-rack dry suit.).

If I'm going out a ways, like two miles or more, I'll wear the dry suit because psychologically I feel somewhat safer wearing it.  For all trips where I'll be within swimming distance of a shore, and anytime I'm going out in freshwater, I'll wear the wetsuit.

But your mileage will vary, wildly, from mine.  And bear in mind, I may be the only person you've heard of who happily got rid of a Hobie and is now found only in paddle-powered kayaks.  I'm a behind-the-curve kind of a guy.

I started off with a wetsuit and I definitely don't miss the feeling or smell.  Dry suit just got too hot for me, so now I'm using the NRS sidewinder bibs with a paddle jacket and love it.  I understand the risks of wearing this and not saying I recommend this for others, but if you get hot easily, dry suit may not be for you. 

I like the NRS sidewinder bibs, too.

Different people have different preferences and opinions about the wetsuit versus drysuit issue.  Here's my opinion: I find wetsuits to be clammy, constricting, and uncomfortable, even if you don't end up peeing inside them.  I find drysuits to be comfortable in a wide range of weather conditions, and I don't find drysuit gaskets to be uncomfortable.  If I wear several layers of clothing under my drysuit to handle cold weather in the morning, or an anticipated downturn in the weather in the afternoon, and the weather ends up being warmer than I expected in the afternoon, I splash water on my drysuit to cool off.

But I'm from Montana and do all my kayak fishing at various places in the northwest, often in quite cold weather and water conditions.  Just two weeks ago I was kayak fishing on Flathead Lake in snow squalls much of the day.  If you're from southern California, a wet suit may be adequate.

I don't like that you can't "customize" a dry suit to fit your extremities unless you want to go full-on custom.  Big feet?  You're going to have to buy a suit that may be much too big and pretty darned uncomfortable on you.  Little feet and even the stock socks are going to bunch up in your boots and feel nearly painful - especially for anyone who pedals around all day.

And as part of that, I don't like Kakatat's warranty coverage on customized products.  I have a pair of paddling pants that Kokatat recommended I order with larger than stock socks.  That voided any warranty on the pants, even having been custom made by Kokatat.  (I didn't need the larger, Bozo the Clown socks, by-the-way, and was able to order an off-the-rack dry suit.).

Lots of good points, but the quote above does not match with my experience. When I got my Kokatat drysuit, they installed larger socks at no charge, and it has had no effect on the warranty. In fact, they've replaced the zipper twice (no charge either time) and I didn't even realize there was any problem with it either time.

My "drysuit" is actually a full gore-tex "paddling suit" that completely unzips into 2 pieces around the waist (unfortunately, they don't sell that model anymore, which might be due to zipper issues). So it's got a comfortable neoprene collar, I suspect it's less likely to cause overheating than other types of material, and it's (relatively) easy to strip off layers from underneath when underway.

As I said, your mileage WILL vary.  Still, I was once a strong proponent for dry suits over wetsuits until I started using them both for different purposes.  Now I favor both.