First day of diving with the new DUI CF200! HAPPY HAPPY!!!!!!!!!

 

"I've wanted a DUI CF200 for nearly half of my life!"

In 1992, I opened Adventure Diving Inc (the first tech dive shop in the Northwest) we were diving the "big shipwrecks" every weekend. My vulcanized rubber was on it's last fins and it was time to get a new drysuit. I spent my diving youth hanging on the stories and words of the East Coast wreck divers and the 'word on the dock' was that the shipwreck diving suit of choice was the CF200. Unfortunately back in the day, my shop wasn't able to carry the DUI line, and was I forced to get a different drysuit. Still I longed for a DUI CF200. Fast forward 16 years, dive shop in the past, more than 3000 dives and it was time to get yet another new suit. I'd gotten more than my money's worth out of my past suit, but it was no longer a 'dry' suit. I was limiting my diving to dives under 2hrs for fear of getting cold... Our water is 48 degrees after all! I found myself turning down opportunities to do bigger dives... I was loosing my diving Mojo.

It became clear that my diving had reached an impasse due to inadequate thermal protection. I tried different undergarments, better gloves etc... but nothing overcame the underlying fact that my dampsuit was becoming a problem. I was hard pressed to even consider a second dive in a day, much less go out and freeze my butt off on the boats.

With the patient encouragement from one of my dearest friends, I started really looking at the CF200 as a viable option. I'd heard it was a very 'heavy' suit, but by now, that is what I wanted... I wanted heavy, I wanted warm. I was not deterred by the "It only comes in men's cut"... So I needed a custom suit! A few more inches in the inseam, a few less inches in the girth, WAY smaller boots... A nip here, a tuck there, a couple pockets later and my suit became... MY suit!

My new baby arrived and it is like I have been given a new lease on my diving life... My diving MOJO is back and it came delivered in a box with the letters DUI on it!!!

I then faced one of the more painful things I've experienced in my adult life... Cutting a hole in a brand new, beautiful, un-dove new suit!! OWIE! Pee valve installed, my new suit is now absolutely PEFECT!!!

For those ladies - and gents for that matter - who dive 'cold', the CF200 is an amazingly WARM suit. It honestly feels like the water is 5+ degrees warmer! My first long day of diving in it, after an hour video-ing on wrecks, a chilly inflatable ride across the sound and a 30 min kick ass drift dive, I was so warm I didn't want to get out of the water! Anyone want to do a third dive?!!

Laura James
Seattle, WA