When it comes to diving in cold water, sooner or later you will start to freeze. In the first place, your air consumption will increase. But you also need to know that water reduces the heat of a human body 25 times faster than air. And when your body begins to shiver, it’s even worse.

On land, shivering helps to rewarm your body, but underwater it supports more heat loss. This can cause hypothermia. Hypothermia occurs when the body’s temperature drops below that level for normal metabolism and body functions. That can be very dangerous.

So if you are freezing underwater, it’s better to end the dive earlier. But don’t ́t worry, you can prevent that very easily. Here are our four tips for diving in cold water.

The right wetsuit is the most important piece of your dive equipment to stay warm. A wetsuit is a neoprene insulation suit. It’s not meant to keep your body dry. Instead, it traps a thin layer of water between the wetsuit and your body. This layer of water is warmed by your body, which prevents you from losing too much heat in the water.

So it’s very important that your wetsuit fits perfectly. Otherwise, it can´t keep the warm water inside. If the wetsuit is too big, cold water will constantly float inside the suit. This can cool you down very fast. Not only the size matters but also the thickness of the diving suit. Neoprene is made of small bubbles that are trapping heat inside. The thicker the neoprene is, the warmer the wetsuit will be.

For diving in cold conditions of Nusa Lembongan, we recommend a 5 mm thick wetsuit. If you are very sensitive to cold water or the temperature is very low, you can also use a 7mm wetsuit. It´s only 2 mm more, but you will feel the difference.

Luce: Well, it’s pretty nice. They are like little baby professional divers with interest in everything. So they are happy and excited about all the new things they are learning. It is really important for me to share my passion because there is a lot of very harmful things going on in our ocean’s coral. We all know about what is happening in Australia with the Great Barrier Reef. That had a great effect on me.

Next, we go to find little pieces of corals that are broken by natural elements, or broken by divers or snorkelers. We then cut one to two-centimetre pieces of this coral. We take the coral fragments back to the boat. Once on the boat, we pair up the coral fragments with rocks from the ocean’s floor that has life on it already. Things like algae are good signs of life on the rock.

You then have one hour on the boat to attach the coral to the boat, while keeping it flushed with sea water the whole time. Before the hour is up the newly propagated coral needs to be on the seafloor back in the coral nursery. Then you let the coral sit for at least ten days than return to see how corals are growing.

If I can educate these young professional divers at the beginning of their careers, hopefully, they can take that information with them as they grow as divers. As professional divers, they can make a difference even if they are just a little more careful when leading fun divers.

Every part of your body that is not covered by your wetsuit is losing energy in the water. Usually, these parts are your head, your hands and your feet.

Our heads are heavily supplied with blood and so they lose the heat very quickly. So if you are cold, you can feel it first on your head. Wearing a hood protects your body from losing heat too fast. A diving hood is also made of neoprene and comes in different thicknesses.

The same goes for your hands and your feet. Everybody knows the uncomfortable feeling of cold hands or feet on land. But how does this affect you underwater?

When it comes to diving, If your hands are getting cold, your fingers can feel stiff. That makes it difficult to use the inflator on your BCD or to do dive signals. And with cold feet, it´s harder to kick. Wearing gloves and booties protects you from that.

Usually, the water temperature drops the deeper you dive. But also the ambient pressure increases. And this is more of a problem if you feel cold.

As we said, the neoprene of your wetsuit is made of bubbles that enclose the air inside to keep you warm. With the higher ambient pressure, those bubbles compress more and more and can keep less air inside.

At around 30 meters they are essentially flat and your wetsuit has no insulation anymore. So when there is no special reason, like a wreck, a Manta or Mola just dive a bit shallower. You will feel much more comfortable.

Not only in the water, there are some hacks to stay warm but on the surface interval. Bring a towel to dry yourself after the dive. A fleece and a hat will heat you up and they can protect you from strong winds on the boat. Remember you are on the ocean and the winds can be quite cold, especially when the boat is moving.

The cold water takes a lot of energy from our body. So to replenish heat and glycogen, drink hot drinks such as sweetened tea or coffee. And last but not least, a quick sunbath will bring back your heat very fast.

Most important is to prepare yourself. Because nothing is more uncomfortable than freezing underwater. Only a few little details can make a big difference. If you worry about what to wear, ask your instructor or divemaster. They definitely know the best equipment for the current situation or dive site.

As you can see, it isn´t that complicated to enjoy a dive in colder water without shivering. Especially when you are surrounded by Manta Rays or a Mola. So prepare and enjoy your dive.