Читать книгу Into the Abyss. Diving to Adventure in the Liquid World онлайн

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I was by now extremely eager to get in the water but found that most of the old hands indicated that they wanted to dive in the second wave. Too late it dawned on me that they would be able to sit warm and dry throughout the first wave’s dive. The first wave, the wave I was told I was to be in, would get back in the boat and then have to shiver through the long wait whilst the second wave went in. Wet, with a November wind slicing effortlessly through a wet suit would soon have the cold gnawing at my bones. There’s no substitute for experience.

I had already learned to take a waterproof out to sea on boat dives to slip over my wet suit to lessen the wind chill. Although no one dives in wet suits these days, wet suits then were the prevailing way to dive. They worked quite well in shallow Scottish waters. Once above water however, the warm layer of water trapped between wet suit and skin, which is what keeps the diver warm, drains down into your boots and robs the wet suit of its thermal qualities. A cold wind seemingly sliced right through them.