The saga of the drysuit looks as though it may have come to an end.  Hoo-flipping-ray!! And about time too.

By the end of last season it was leaking really badly, and I had two miserably cold days at the end of October, completely soaked by the end of each morning dive.  Luckily there was no afternoon dive on the Saturday and on Sunday there were the harbour's hot showers and a complete change of clothing to look forward to before the long drive home.

That was IT.  Enough.  I thought I was going to have to get a new suit and even got in touch with a friend who makes them (though only for power-boating - he wasn't too sure about making one for diving...).  I took the suit to the dive shop for a last attempt at rendering it usable.  Given that the shop had pressure-tested it the previous year and found no problems, I wasn't sanguine, but it was worth one last shot.

They tested it again and found not one but THREE holes, the largest around the suit inflation valve.  As the valve doesn't swivel and that's where I was getting wettest, that wasn't a major surprise, but I hadn't realised there were also holes in one arm and on my back.  So they fixed the holes, re-taped the neck and wrist seals, and gave it back to me for a reasonable sum.

I'd hoped to test it for real on a club dive down at St Abb's a couple of weekends ago, but the weather wasn't up to much so I didn't go.  Yesterday evening I gave it the "beginner's test", in the local swimming pool down to 3.6 metres.  Not a drop.  Totally dry.  Hallelujah!!

I do hope it'll be the same when I move that decimal point to 36....