DUI Demotour Takes the Chill Out of a Florida Dive
When our buddies in the Midwest are watching ice crust over their local dive spots, we’re off to one of our nearby springs where the crystal-clear water is 72 degrees year round (I love the way it steams like a hot tub on chilly mornings). And yet we still complain about the cold.
But knowing I’m spoiled doesn’t make me any warmer, and I’ve seldom finished a long spring dive wearing a wetsuit without a chill, even on hot summer days. So when the DUI Demotour made its annual stop at Manatee Springs in November, I showed up to try a little dry diving for a change.
In case you’re not one of the 30,000-plus divers who have attended a DUI Demotour, it’s sort of a traveling dive rally/suit fitting/test dive/barbecue.
DUI, which in 2013 celebrated its 50th anniversary, has been holding Demotours around the country for 17 years. (Check out the schedule for next year’s Demotours at DUI's website. Watch a DUI video to see the company's commitment to helping divers get a custom fit in their new drysuit and how the company makes its wetsuits.)
At Manatee Springs State Park northwest of Orlando, the DUI team had set up two big circus tents stocked with drysuits in all models and sizes, along with a huge selection of undergarments and accessories.
Nearly 50 volunteers, many of them DUI dealers or longtime customers known as DOGs, provided the muscle for the event. They sized and fit divers for seals and suits, installed inflator hoses on regs, helped divers suit up and get properly weighted, briefed them at the water’s edge, dived with each group and answered any questions.
For $15 (only $10 for advance tickets) divers could try out multiple drysuits and accessories. (Another five bucks got you a tasty BBQ lunch.)
About 140 divers attended the two-day event at Manatee Springs, and the big draw for many I spoke to was the chance to actually dive the suits they were considered buying – and to be expertly fitted for suits and accessories by the DUI staff and volunteers.
Many of the volunteers have been attending Demotours for years, and some camp out in the state park over the weekend, where I got the impression the evenings often involve adult beverages and storytelling.
But the days are all work, and helping to keep the event spinning along on schedule was DUI’s Faith Ortins, who’s been selling drysuits long enough she can size you up with one look and a quick, “How much do you weigh, honey?”
DUI brought 127 suits to the Manatee Springs event, and seeing them all hanging inside the tents showed the diversity of the company’s product line. The styles and designs ranged from the whimsical (a lightweight suit with material decorated with skulls) to the no-nonsense (a crushed neoprene number that seemed like it could stop a bullet). There was also a bright-red hazmat suit that looked like it could do cleanup duty at Chernobyl.
I chose DUI’s most popular drysuit, the TLS 350, which has an easy-entry diagonal front zipper and is lightweight enough to be convenient for travel. The one Ortins picked out for me was a perfect fit. (Dear Santa, in midnight blue, please?)
Ortins said women are tougher to fit than men.
“They just come in more different sizes than men,” Ortins said. “Two women can be the same height and weight and still look nothing alike.”
Still, the only would-be diver Ortins ever couldn’t suit up at a Demotour was a man.
“We carry two 6XL suits on the truck,” Ortins said. “But we couldn’t fit him.”
My average frame wasn’t much of a challenge to fit, but the RockBoots I wore were too big for my fins. No worries: DUI had brought along a big pile of jumbo kickers to borrow from.
At the water’s edge, volunteers helped to properly weight each diver and gave briefings on operating the inlet and exhaust valves. They also explained what to do if you get into the “floaty feet” inverted position. First-time drysuit divers seem to worry about this a lot, but the only divers I saw inverted were ones doing it intentionally to demonstrate how to get out of it (tuck up your knees and roll).
For undergarments, I had chosen the XM250 jumpsuit designed for water down to 50 degrees, since a November cool front had sent the temperature plunging, once you factored in wind chill and all, to about 73 F. Brrrr.
In the water I was plenty warm, and actually glad I hadn’t put on my hood. For a few seconds, I realized I was waiting for that wetsuit experience of the cold trickle of water down my neck and back. I was glad it never came.
Now, in case you have some clever cracks here about drysuit diving in Florida, Ortins has heard them all. She’s now the company’s vice president, but for years she was a sales rep whose region included all of Florida.
“I remember going into a dive shop in the Keys, and the owner saying, ‘Look, my customers aren’t going to buy a drysuit,’ and I bet him I could get the next person to walk into the door to try on a drysuit.”
The next customer through the door was a woman in a skirt and high heels who was picking up her boyfriend’s reg, Ortins said.
“The owner figured he’d won the bet, but I started talking to this woman and it turned out she was a diver, too,” Ortins said. “When I asked her whether she ever dove in the winter, she said, no, she was always too cold. I asked her, what if you could stay warm _and _dry, and in a few minutes she was trying on a drysuit.”
Ortins figures people who think drysuits are only for frigid water are people who simply haven’t tried one, and that’s the idea behind the Demotours — making it easy to give it a try.
With all the expert help available at the Demotour, it couldn’t have been easier. I found the toughest thing all day was deciding, after my dive, whether to have a hamburger or hotdog at the barbecue. I settled on both.
To see ScubaLab's latest drysuit roundup, including DUI's newest offerings, see the 2014 Drysuit Gear Guide.
Roger Roy is the director of ScubaLab.
Roger Roy
Divers check out the equipment at the DUI Demotour event held at Florida's Manatee Springs State Park.
Roger Roy
A diver chooses a new drysuit to try out and chats with one of the DUI volunteers. The volunteers sized and fit divers for seals and suits, installed inflator hoses on regs, helped divers suit up and get properly weighted, briefed them at the water’s edge, dived with each group and answered any questions.
Roger RoyDivers get into the 72-degree water at Manatee Springs, perfect for a drysuit diving Demotour event. DUI brought 127 suits to the event for the participants to check out.
When our buddies in the Midwest are watching ice crust over their local dive spots, we’re off to one of our nearby springs where the crystal-clear water is 72 degrees year round (I love the way it steams like a hot tub on chilly mornings). And yet we still complain about the cold.
But knowing I’m spoiled doesn’t make me any warmer, and I’ve seldom finished a long spring dive wearing a wetsuit without a chill, even on hot summer days. So when the DUI Demotour made its annual stop at Manatee Springs in November, I showed up to try a little dry diving for a change.
In case you’re not one of the 30,000-plus divers who have attended a DUI Demotour, it’s sort of a traveling dive rally/suit fitting/test dive/barbecue.
DUI, which in 2013 celebrated its 50th anniversary, has been holding Demotours around the country for 17 years. (Check out the schedule for next year’s Demotours at DUI's website. Watch a DUI video to see the company's commitment to helping divers get a custom fit in their new drysuit and how the company makes its wetsuits.)
At Manatee Springs State Park northwest of Orlando, the DUI team had set up two big circus tents stocked with drysuits in all models and sizes, along with a huge selection of undergarments and accessories.
Nearly 50 volunteers, many of them DUI dealers or longtime customers known as DOGs, provided the muscle for the event. They sized and fit divers for seals and suits, installed inflator hoses on regs, helped divers suit up and get properly weighted, briefed them at the water’s edge, dived with each group and answered any questions.
For $15 (only $10 for advance tickets) divers could try out multiple drysuits and accessories. (Another five bucks got you a tasty BBQ lunch.)
About 140 divers attended the two-day event at Manatee Springs, and the big draw for many I spoke to was the chance to actually dive the suits they were considered buying – and to be expertly fitted for suits and accessories by the DUI staff and volunteers.
Many of the volunteers have been attending Demotours for years, and some camp out in the state park over the weekend, where I got the impression the evenings often involve adult beverages and storytelling.
But the days are all work, and helping to keep the event spinning along on schedule was DUI’s Faith Ortins, who’s been selling drysuits long enough she can size you up with one look and a quick, “How much do you weigh, honey?”
DUI brought 127 suits to the Manatee Springs event, and seeing them all hanging inside the tents showed the diversity of the company’s product line. The styles and designs ranged from the whimsical (a lightweight suit with material decorated with skulls) to the no-nonsense (a crushed neoprene number that seemed like it could stop a bullet). There was also a bright-red hazmat suit that looked like it could do cleanup duty at Chernobyl.
I chose DUI’s most popular drysuit, the TLS 350, which has an easy-entry diagonal front zipper and is lightweight enough to be convenient for travel. The one Ortins picked out for me was a perfect fit. (Dear Santa, in midnight blue, please?)
Ortins said women are tougher to fit than men.
“They just come in more different sizes than men,” Ortins said. “Two women can be the same height and weight and still look nothing alike.”
Still, the only would-be diver Ortins ever couldn’t suit up at a Demotour was a man.
“We carry two 6XL suits on the truck,” Ortins said. “But we couldn’t fit him.”
My average frame wasn’t much of a challenge to fit, but the RockBoots I wore were too big for my fins. No worries: DUI had brought along a big pile of jumbo kickers to borrow from.
At the water’s edge, volunteers helped to properly weight each diver and gave briefings on operating the inlet and exhaust valves. They also explained what to do if you get into the “floaty feet” inverted position. First-time drysuit divers seem to worry about this a lot, but the only divers I saw inverted were ones doing it intentionally to demonstrate how to get out of it (tuck up your knees and roll).
For undergarments, I had chosen the XM250 jumpsuit designed for water down to 50 degrees, since a November cool front had sent the temperature plunging, once you factored in wind chill and all, to about 73 F. Brrrr.
In the water I was plenty warm, and actually glad I hadn’t put on my hood. For a few seconds, I realized I was waiting for that wetsuit experience of the cold trickle of water down my neck and back. I was glad it never came.
Now, in case you have some clever cracks here about drysuit diving in Florida, Ortins has heard them all. She’s now the company’s vice president, but for years she was a sales rep whose region included all of Florida.
“I remember going into a dive shop in the Keys, and the owner saying, ‘Look, my customers aren’t going to buy a drysuit,’ and I bet him I could get the next person to walk into the door to try on a drysuit.”
The next customer through the door was a woman in a skirt and high heels who was picking up her boyfriend’s reg, Ortins said.
“The owner figured he’d won the bet, but I started talking to this woman and it turned out she was a diver, too,” Ortins said. “When I asked her whether she ever dove in the winter, she said, no, she was always too cold. I asked her, what if you could stay warm _and _dry, and in a few minutes she was trying on a drysuit.”
Ortins figures people who think drysuits are only for frigid water are people who simply haven’t tried one, and that’s the idea behind the Demotours — making it easy to give it a try.
With all the expert help available at the Demotour, it couldn’t have been easier. I found the toughest thing all day was deciding, after my dive, whether to have a hamburger or hotdog at the barbecue. I settled on both.
To see ScubaLab's latest drysuit roundup, including DUI's newest offerings, see the 2014 Drysuit Gear Guide.
Roger Roy is the director of ScubaLab.
