Ask an Aquanaut:Wetsuits?
e. wohlenberg asks: As I was watching the aquanauts “go home” after a day’s work, a question occurred to me. Must wetsuits, etc. be rinsed and dried each day, or may they stay soaking in salt water until the next day’s work? Thanks.
Great question! The Aquanauts work long and hard in their wetsuits and they do get a bit “funky”. Our wetsuit cleaning procedure has them removing the wetsuit and doing an initial rinse in salt water. They are then rinsed in a bucket filled with fresh water. After that, the wetsuits are dipped in a bucket of fresh water that has an enzyme solution called Mirazyme added to it. The Mirazyme is the key. It kills the stink making bacteria. What a relief!
The wetsuits are hung on hangars to drip dry. They never get totally dry because the wet porch, where they are stored, is at 100% humidity. Another interesting fact is that the wetsuits compress with depth, so they stay compressed throughout the mission. This definitely shortens the life of the wetsuits.
Mark W. Hulsbeck
Oceanographic Field Operations Manager, aquanaut
2 Responses So Far
Nightrider | June 15th, 2008
Ken:
I sent the link to the Aquarius page to all of the Active Divers Association volunteers on the Coral Restoration Project. We have 10 volunteers for the July activities and are psyched about working with you.
Roy Wasson
Ken Nedimyer | June 16th, 2008
Roy,
That’s great. This project has been a bit of a trial run for the field work part of the projects. We’ve attached several hundred corals over the last week and all look pretty good. It would be unheard of to do this much work at this depth diving from the surface, but because we’re saturated at this depth, we’ve been able to spend six or seven hours a day working and collecting data. Today is the last day, then we start decompression. Talk to you later. Ken
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