Dive parka FAQs

These are the questions divers ask us most often, on boats, at shops, and by email. We have tried to answer them the way we would in person, including where the honest answer is that it depends.

Why you get cold

Why am I so cold after a dive, even once I'm out of the water?

Your core temperature keeps falling for roughly 20 to 40 minutes after you surface. This is called afterdrop. Blood that pooled in your extremities during the dive returns to your core as you warm up and start moving, and it arrives cold. A wet wetsuit makes it worse: airflow across wet neoprene turns the suit into an evaporative cooler, pulling heat away faster than still air would. That is why you can feel colder on the boat than you did underwater, and why the second dive is often harder than the first.

What is afterdrop in diving?

Afterdrop is the continued fall in core body temperature after leaving cold water. Peripheral vessels constrict during a cold dive, keeping cooled blood in the limbs. When you begin to rewarm, that blood circulates back and lowers core temperature further. Divers Alert Network research notes that cold impairs cognitive function, manual dexterity and judgment, which is why rewarming between dives is generally treated as part of dive planning rather than a comfort question.

Should I use the car heater or a hot shower to warm up?

Aggressive external heat is usually not the fastest route to core rewarming. A blasting car heater or a hot shower draws blood toward the skin, which can slow the return of core temperature. Gradual, passive rewarming is what most cold water divers rely on: get the wet suit off or covered, block the wind, add insulation, and let the body come back at its own pace. Warm drinks and dry layers help.

If anyone is showing real cold stress, slurred speech, stumbling, dropped gear, that is a medical situation and should be treated as one.

What to wear

What should I wear between dives to stay warm?

The priority is blocking wind and stopping evaporative cooling from a wet exposure suit. A towel does neither, and wind passes straight through it. A regular jacket blocks some wind but is not waterproof, is usually too short, and generally will not close over a wetsuit.

What works is a purpose built dive parka: a waterproof, wind blocking shell with insulation inside, cut oversized so it goes on over dripping gear. Breathability matters as much as warmth, or you simply trade cold for clammy. Our Original WaterParka was built for exactly this, using a PTFE membrane rated at 15 CFM and bonded recycled polyester fleece that still insulates when wet.

What is the difference between a dive parka and a changing robe?

Changing robes are generally designed for open water swimmers: a waterproof outer layer over a lining, sized to change underneath. Dive parkas face a harder job. Divers wear thicker exposure suits, spend longer topside between dives, move around boat hardware, and put years of salt exposure on their gear.

The differences that matter in practice are fit over a 3 to 7mm wetsuit or a drysuit with undergarments, whether the shell is genuinely breathable or only waterproof, hardware that survives salt, and enough length to cover you while you wrestle neoprene off in a parking lot. Plenty of changing robes use coated fabrics that block water but trap perspiration, which is uncomfortable on a warm deck.

What does CFM mean, and why does it matter?

CFM is cubic feet per minute, a measure of how much air passes through a fabric. Lower means more windproof; higher means more airflow. For post dive use you want a fabric that stops wind and water while still letting vapor out, otherwise you warm up and then get clammy.

Many changing robes and dive coats publish no breathability figure at all, which usually means a coated shell rather than a membrane. Ours is a PTFE membrane rated at 15 CFM, the same fabric family used in technical alpine shells.

Fit and use

Will it fit over a 7mm wetsuit or a drysuit?

A parka built for diving should be cut oversized so it goes straight on over a dripping suit. For a 3 to 7mm wetsuit, most divers take their normal shirt size. For a drysuit with thick undergarments, size up one. Ordinary outerwear generally will not close over a 7mm suit, and a hood that is not moulded and adjustable tends to blow off in boat wind.

How do you change out of a wetsuit in a parking lot?

The usual options are a towel, a car door, or resignation. A parka with reach through pockets solves it properly: you can reach your waist from inside the parka, peel the suit down, and change while fully covered. An extra long back hem matters here too, because it keeps you covered when you bend. We call ours hidden Zen pockets, and they exist because shore diving rarely offers anywhere private to change.

Do drysuit divers need a parka between dives?

Many do. A drysuit keeps water out but does not stop heat loss at the hood, neck and wrists, or evaporation off the suit surface. Undergarments pick up moisture between dives. Wind across a drysuit on a boat deck still costs you core temperature. A parka over the top blocks wind and evaporative loss at the zones the suit cannot cover.

Are snaps or zippers better?

Snaps have three practical advantages in salt water. Stainless steel does not corrode the way zipper teeth do. Snaps are far easier with cold, numb fingers, which matters when you are re kitting for a second dive and everyone is waiting. And a failed snap can be replaced years later, where a failed zipper usually ends the garment. The tradeoff is that snaps are slightly less wind tight than a fully closed zipper, which a good collar and neck warmer offsets.

Longevity and care

How long should a good dive parka last?

Many seasons, not a few trips. The failure points to watch are zipper corrosion, delamination of the waterproof layer, and fleece that soaks up water and stays wet. Ten year plus ownership is common among our customers, including instructors and charter captains diving several days a week. Hydrophobic fleece that holds under one percent of its weight in water, and stainless hardware, are the two features most associated with that lifespan.

How do you wash a dive parka?

Rinse the salt off after each trip, machine wash cold when it needs it, use only OxyClean or you can use washing soda, borax, baking soda, or pure sodium percarbonate, hang dry. Skip fabric softener, which can clog a breathable membrane. Skip high heat drying. Sand shakes out of bonded fleece on its own, because there is no mesh lining to trap it.

Is a dive parka worth the money?

Most divers compare it against the cost of a dive day rather than against a jacket. Boat fee, tank fills, fuel and travel usually run well over a hundred dollars before you get wet, and a liveaboard day costs several times that. Skipping a second dive because you never rewarmed wastes that spend.

At around $249 for something that lasts a decade, it works out near $25 a year. Whether that is worth it depends on how often you dive cold water, and how often the cold has already cost you a dive.

About us

What do dive professionals wear between dives?

Instructors and divemasters are in and out of the water for hours across multiple surface intervals, so the demands are higher than for a recreational diver. What they tend to need is a shell that goes on fast over a wet suit, wind protection during student briefings, breathability so they are not sweating through baselayers between sessions, and durability under daily use. Most treat a parka as a working tool rather than an accessory.

Who makes Surf-fur?

We are a family owned business in California and Hawaii, and we are serious water people. Design work on the WaterParka started in 2001 and went through seven iterations before the first production run shipped in 2007. We make cold water warming gear and nothing else, and the fabric is made to our own specification. The brand holds a registered United States trademark for SURFFUR in Class 025.

A note on cold and safety. Nothing here is medical advice. Managing cold exposure is part of dive planning, and if you or a buddy show signs of significant cold stress, stop diving and seek medical help. For research on thermal stress in diving, Divers Alert Network is the place to start.