Exposure Protection

[DetectorGuy]

There are two schools of thought on the warm water in the wetsuit that I heard, and I don't know for sure which way to go on that one. This is just what I heard so don't crucify my writing this:

1) If you pour water in the wet suit to warm the core, then the blood vessels expand and let the warmer blood from the core to flow faster to the extremities. The conduction of the colder water on the extremities cools this blood and then cools the core faster than if you had not poured warm water in the suit.

2) If you bring warm water in a cooler (minus the beer) and stand in this cooler between dives, keep your gloves and hood in it between dives too, your extremities will be warmer and your core won't be tricked into thinking it is warm. Therefore the blood vessels stay constricted and blood flow is reduced to these extremities and keeping the core warmer.

The mammilian reflex kicks in with the cooler water and it is pretty interesting how this works. Here is what Wikipedia says about it:

It kinda makes sense that you layer up with as much neoprene as you can safely weight down and go enjoy the increased viz in the spring.
...Besides it is mostly mind over matter...  If you don't mind, it don't matter.