What Do I Wear Under a Wetsuit?

As you may have noticed from previous blog posts, I've recently taken up scuba diving again. A lot has changed in the past 25 years since I was first certified to dive, and there are now new types of fins, BCDs, underwater cameras and diving computers that didn't exist back in the Stone Ages. But my favorite new invention is the dive skin. I don't think these existed when I first learned to dive, but if they did, I never had one. And I never knew what I was missing!

I now have a dive skin that I wear under my wetsuit, and it is my favorite new part of diving. Why? Because one of my least favorite aspects of scuba diving (at least in the cold waters of Monterey Bay in California) is putting on the dreaded wetsuit. Don't get me wrong - I love my wetsuit because my I'd be turning blue in the 50-degree waters of Monterey Bay without it, but a 7mm Farmer John-style wetsuit is a PAIN to put on. But a skin dive is the perfect answer to "what to wear under a wetsuit" because it makes your wetsuit slide on easier and it provides sun protection when you want to pull your wetsuit down and get some air when you're out of the water. Why didn't they have these 25 years ago??

A dive skin basically is like a full-body rash guard. It's thin, light and extremely flexible (unlike a 7mm wetsuit, which makes me feel like a mummy). But the real beauty is in how slick it is. Not how slick it looks, but how slick it feels. My wetsuit practically glides right over it. And in warm water - where I hope to dive soon - you can wear the dive skin alone as protection against the sun's rays and minor abrasions.

It's a great invention and one of my favorite new things about scuba diving.