Equipment FAQs – wetsuits

The main difference between a spearfishing wetsuit and something like a surf wetsuit is the type of neoprene used. A surfer's wetsuit is designed to keep you warm on or above the water but it doesn't have any resistance to compression. When you dive say 10 metres, a surf wetsuit will be paper thin and will offer no warmth properties. Because it's so thin, when you're diving under water it's like you're not really wearing anything so you get a lot colder, a lot quicker.

A spearfishing wetsuit will come in 2 pieces - you'll have a jacket and some pants. This combination and the way it is designed, the cut of the two garments, prevents water from flushing into your wetsuit when you're diving which is what will happen when you're using a normal surf wetsuit. A proper spearfishing wetsuit will retain its thickness at depth and therefore keep you much warmer for a lot longer.

So with a surf wetsuit you'll probably find that during summer you can go out for about 90 minutes to two hours before the cold will eventually hit you and you'll have to come in. In a spearfishing wetsuit you'll find that you can stay out for pretty much 6 - 8 hours no problem. The only thing you'll want to consider here is how thick the gloves and socks you choose should be.

Although some feel the cold more in their extremities than others, most people will use a 3mm sock and a 3mm glove. and then maybe in the colder months of winter they'll go to 5mm socks and gloves.

You have to remember that the thicker the wetsuit, the more buoyant you're going to be, the less freedom of movement you'll have and the more weight you'll need to wear on your belt to get down to the bottom.

In the UK most people use a 5mm wetsuit. Some people who feel the cold more than others will have a 7mm jacket combined with 5mm pants and they'll use this throughout winter as well as summer. However, the maority use 5mm.

The pants come in two styles - high waist trousers, or farmer john style which look a little like dungarees. The benefit to the farmer john style is that they have more neoprene over your core, so it's just a bit thicker and will keep you warmer for longer. The downside to the farmer johns is that if you need to relieve yourself during a dive session, you have to take your jacket off and then strip your pants down - so basically to go to the toilet, you'll be completely naked!

The benefit to the high waist pants is that you can just lift your jacket up a little and take your pants down if you need to go to the toilet!

Spearfishing wetsuits also come in a varity of different camouflages. Hand on heart, nobody can really say how much of a difference camouflage makes but I think on the topic of camouflage, the main thing you want to keep in mind is that you don't want to look like a seal! A big straight black wetsuit is a bit seal-like - at least the camouflage ones break up your profile somewhat. The fish will always know you're there - as soon as you dive they're quite curious and they'll swim up to you but the main thing is, you don't want to look like a threatening predator.

There's a few different types of neoprene available now in the spearfishing wetsuit industry. The most popular recent one is the yamamoto neoprene - it's an environmentally friendly made neoprene because it doesn't use any of the oils that are found in the traditional neoprene. It also slowly moulds to the shape of your body over time so the more you dive the more it will fit your body shape. It's also a very stretchy and super comfy whilst still remaining resistant to compression at depth.

The other more traditional types of neoprene of which there are hundreds of different grades, tends to be a bit harder wearing than yamamoto. For our courses we use the older model of the Rob Allen wetsuit which has the traditional neoprene, and after 7 years of running courses, we've not retired one suit yet. Rob Allen wetsuits just last for absolutely ages, whereas the yamamoto neoprene which is more comfortable than the traditional type, is not as durable. So depending on how much you dive, you might want to bear this in mind.

It is completely down to you whether you buy a camouflage spearfishing wetsuit or not. Camouflage doesn't help in the tradtional sense that you would think camo would help you with, but what it does do is stop you looking like a predatory seal. Imagine yourself wearing a black or dark single-colour wetsuit and you dive down and you're hiding amongst the kelp - if you're in a black wetsuit you're going to look like a large black predatory animal so it's certainly not going to do you any favours. A camo wetsuit is going to at least break up your outline and make you look like less of a threat, but you're never going to hide from the fish - they'll always know you're there. In fact, generally speaking fish are very inquisitive and you want them to know you're there, so quite often we'll dive down to a reef and we'll make a little bit of noise, like we'll twang the bands on a speargun or make a grunting noise with our throat and it'll just announce your presence and any fish in the area will come and check you out, and hopefully give you the the opportunity to take a shot.

There has also been a large surge in red camouflage spearfishing apparel recently. The theory behind the bright red wetsuit is that you're highly visible on the surface of the ocean for other ocean users, boat users and in an emergency situation when you need to get rescued, but as soon as you drop below 5 feet, that red turns to brown which matches the UK kelp perfectly. So you get the best of both worlds - you get a nice appropriately coloured camouflage when you're actually diving and you get some nice high vis on the surface which is what you want to stay safe.

How much of a difference does it make overall though? With the camouflage wetsuits, I think most experienced spearos would say very little or next to none, but I think in terms of breaking up your profile so you don't look like the fishes' main predator, i.e. the seal, this can only help.

There has been a bit of a breakthrough in the wetsuit industry over the last few years in the form of the hex aquatic wetsuits whereby they have a wire mesh built into the neoprene which minimises the electrical signals that your body gives off that the fish detect. Again it doesn't make your radar invisible to fish or anything like that, but it certainly gives an advantage for people diving in areas where sharks might be found for obvious reasons.

The vast, vast majority of spearos will use a 5mm wetsuit as long as it's a proper, two-piece spearfishing wetsuit, as the neoprene is very different to a surf wetsuit. So a 5mm surf wetsuit is not comparable at all to a two-piece 5mm spearfishing wetsuit. The neoprene on a spearfishing wetsuit will not compress at depth, whereas if you were to dive about 10 metres in a spearfishing wetsuit, the neoprene will compress and be pretty much paper thin. You can also damage surf wetsuits by freediving in depths with them.

The problem with a wetsuit that goes paper thin when you dive in it is that you'll just go cold really quickly. The deeper you dive in it, the colder you'll get. Predominantly you'll only last 90 minutes in a surf wetsuit when spearfishing. If you're diving deep, you can cut that in half. In a proper, 2-piece 5mm spearfishing wetsuit, you can last about 6 to 8 hours in summer and then around 2 to 4 hours in winter, depending how deep you're diving.

If you're just diving in the summer, then a two piece 5mm spearfishing wetsuit will be pretty much ideal for England, the South Coast and Wales.

If you're gong to be diving all year round including winter then you might want to opt for a 7mm jacket with 5mm pants. Alternatively a lot of people buy a full 5mm wetsuit and then an additional 7mm jacket for the colder months.

For England the water temperature in summer is around 13 - 14 degrees and drops to around 8 - 9 degrees over winter. If you're spearfishing in Scotland then you probably want to go with minimum a 5/7 split and quite often people in Scotland will just go for a straight 7mm as the waters are colder up north.

Another option for those that feel the cold more is to get a 5mm wetsuit - the wetsuit with the high waist pants over the farmer johns - and then if it's a colder time of year, you can get a neoprene vest to wear underneath the wetsuit jacket - so that could just be a 2mm vest or a 3mm vest, which will just bolster up your core and keep you warmer for longer.

The dilemma is with wetsuits that you want to go as thin as you can without compromising your ability to dive for long periods. What a lot of people don't realise is that the thicker the neoprene, the more buoyant you're going to be which means you have to wear more lead on your weight belt in order to dive. Without it, you just won't be able to gain any depth - you'll dive down to 8 metres and you'll just float straight back up, or you'll be holding onto kelp and your legs will just be up in the air like you're doing a handstand and it's not a very effective way to hunt fish!!

So it's always a fine balance between being warm enough and not having to lug around extra kilos of weight on your belt. Also, you can lose a lot of dexterity - the thicker the wetsuit, the less freedom of movement you'll have in your shoulders and arms, and it just makes everything a little bit more cumbersome. I recently went to Norway and tried a 9mm top - and by the end of the first day I retired it because I decided I'd rather be cold than have to tolerate the extra buoyancy and awkwardness that it was giving. Obviously in some places you don't have that choice, but it was a very quick lesson for me on how annoying having to deal with the extra neoprene was.

When it comes to socks and gloves, again in summer most people use 2 - 3 mm gloves and socks, likely 3mm - and if they feel the cold more than others, they might use 5mm but again, remember that you're losing dexterity in your fingers. It's not so much of an issue with your socks.

In winter most people will switch to 5mm for both their socks and gloves. Interestingly its a very psychological point whereby if you have cold hands, it makes your whole body feel a lot colder. Again when I was in Norway i switched to a 5mm wetsuit and I felt okay apart from my hands. When they felt freezing, my whole body would feel cold - but as soon as I switched to 5mm gloves, my hands would warm up again, my entire body would feel fine and I'd just stop shivering. So it's quite an interesting point about the psychological effect of being reminded of coldness all the time through your extremities.

Incidentally if you are diving somewhere particularly cold like Norway, a really good tip is to get some neoprene shorts to wear over your wetsuit. So where there are slight gaps around your legs and the beavertail, the shorts cover those gaps and stop any flushing of water and that really helps keep you warm for longer.

In summer we like 3mm socks and gloves - that's what the vast vast majority of spearos will use. If you are susceptible to the cold then you can go up to 5mm no problem - but the only downside to that is that, particularly with the gloves, you can lose some dexterity because the thicker neoprene just makes it harder to move your fingers. and it's harder to feel things like mask toggles and zips, and to clip and unclip things. The thicker the gloves, the more awkward it is.

If you become winter diver then a lot of winter spearos will switch out the 3mm for 5mm and that makes a lot of difference. Remember if you're switching 3mm socks to 5mm socks then there's a good chance your fins are going to feel too tight because you've bought them to be matched up with 3mm socks. So if you're buying fins and you think you're going to dive in winter as well as summer, then it might be worth considering just making sure there's a bit of extra room to accommodate the thicker socks. If you choose fins with a bit of room, you can use some fin savers in the summer and then of course you won't have to use them in winter.

One thing's for sure though, if your feet are tight in your foot pocket, it will lead to cramp at some point in the not-too-distant future from wearing them. Cramp in your foot will just end your day straight away - you just can't dive with it, it ruins any dive session. For that reason, personally, if I'm between sizes, I'll always go for the size up and opt for a fin saver. For traditional UK diving which is predominately within 12 meters, if you have a slightly loose fin pocket, you're not going to notice any difference. If you're a very deep diver, pushing 30+ metres, then you'll always want a really snug fit - not tight but just the perfect fit - because that'll allow you to get the maximum amount of energy return from your fin while diving at depth - whereas if you're just hitting 12 to 15 metres, you're really not going to notice any difference if you have the slightly looser fins but you will have the benefit of being able to use a 5mm foot pocket during the colder times of the year.

On a side note, wetsuit socks are just something you're going to eat through - you'll go through endless amounts of these during your spearfishing career. The only sock that I know that will last significantly longer than others is the commercial grade Ruku sock which has a Kevlar patch over the sole. These are a lot more resilient to holes or scuffs.

You'll find most people wear something like crocs just to walk to the beach and back. If you're walking just in your neoprene socks from the car park to your dive spot you'll go through a couple of sets in a season if you're a regular diver. Get crocs or something similar - you can wear those to walk to your dive spot, clip them to your float and your socks will suffer less wear.