Lava Core Wetsuit Review

How I lost 6 pounds overnight @ Kohala Divers Ltd.

My Henderson Gold Core lasted me 8 years before the zipper broke in the middle of our trip here on the Big Island. The folks at Kohala Divers had told me about their new Lava Core neutrally buoyant suits that seemed more like a liner for a dry suit than a wet suit. I tried two sizes the XL and L, I'm 6' 2" 185 pounds give or take, at first I thought the XL was the right size due to the way it felt on me in the shop, the Large felt to snug initially but after looking at the sizing chart I decided that would be the correct one for me. Now the next step, how much weight can I shed using an Aluminum 80,,,,, after talking with the always helpful folks at the shop I decided to go from the 14 pounds I had been using to 10,,,,,, no problem with the 10, the next dive I went down to 8 again no problem and was able to have better buoyancy control from 10 ft to the surface than I ever had before and that was with the Aluminum 80 with under 500 pounds. So I decided to go one step further, 6 pounds, I can honestly say I've never felt so in control of my buoyancy in the water before, just loving it, same thing on the shallow diving, great control under 500 pounds of air between 10 ft and the surface . Ok I did try to go to 4 pounds and I can say that was fine until I got down to about 700 pounds and I was pretty much turned into a snorkeler. It's a lot lighter than the neoprene, the inside is a soft comfy fleece material. I don't know what the outside material is, I have knelt down a couple of times in the rock and sand on a couple of shore dive exits and it doesn't seem to have left a mark on it. The only thing I could think of and maybe there is a reason they didn't do it would be to put some type of rubber on the knee area. I've got about 6 dives with the Lava Core now and am very impressed. One other thing that is different is the zipper is in front, going on it's sooooooooooooooo easy,taking it off seems a little difficult pulling it off my shoulders, but it's very doable without assistance. You can't just let it hang down like most traditional suits, but if you sort of loop the arms of the suit around each other in front it stays like that just fine.... Did I mention how comfortable it feels compared to a traditional suit, well it's very comfy. It's also a lot warmer than I thought it would be, my Henderson Gold Core 3mm was pretty warm, this if it's not as warm it's within 85 to 95 percent as warm. The one word of caution I would have is to make sure you get the right size, if it doesn't feel to tight in the shop, it's to big for you. Another thing is it's a lot more flexible and your movement is NOT restricted near as much as with a traditional neoprene suit.

Dive Report 6/13/2011 Puako, Big Island, Hawaii

We went out at Paniau aka End of the Road at Puako about 9am, hadn't been there in a few days. As usual an easy entry, with my new wet suit I tried using just 4 pounds of weight, going down no problem at the beginning of the dive. On the way out on the upper shelf nothing really unusual the normal suspects. I dropped down a little early on the upper shelf instead of the canyon to be sure I could go down with such little weight, I left 4 more pounds on shore near the entry in case I could submerge, but didn't have to go get it. Shortly after entering the Canyon I was looking at the walls to see what was around, I saw a small Yellow Margin Eel looking out the bottom of a coral head that was hanging over the top of the canyon from the upper shelf. got a nice video of that one and saw some little clown fishes, since there were 3 of them together decided to try to get a video of them, they are quite shy and good little hiders, got a few pics of them and noticed a small school of some very bright colored fish about a half inch long or so, got them in the video as well and mixed in with them were some of the smallest baby rock mover fish I've ever seen about an inch long it appeared. Finished up that video and moved on out to the buoy, we had discussed our dive plan before hand and decided we'd go to the first buoy then over to the second one and see if we could find any sharks sleeping in the caves or areas under the reef by the sand. Well no disappointment this day, popped over the coral just before the buoy and there was a white tip about 4 to 5 ft long just resting on the sand. I looked back to let Pam know and she saw it just after i did, I got one still pic and thankfully noticed I had the camera on pic not video mode and switched it over to video mode and slid down closer to the shark as Pam stayed put as not to scare the Sea Kitten away (so she said ), I was able to get about 10 to 15 feet away before it got annoyed and scurried off. We've seen sharks when we've been diving before but this by far was the best shark encounter we've ever had. Here is the Video. Moved out toward the other buoy but didn't see any more sharks. I did see some tangs and Big Eye's in a small cavern and crack in the reef so I began videoing them and followed them into the crack when I noticed a real big thick yellow/goldish oh,,,, it's a big Yellow Margin Eel I could see the gills where it expels the water it takes in and this thing was huge, I just stopped there and watched as the other fish scurried around and one ran into the Eel and he made a real quick move towards the tang which was also toward me,,,, ah, yes it well I'll say startled me, I wish I could have kept the lens pointed toward the Eel longer than i did but you can see his head just before I reacted. We decided to move out a little deeper and away from shore and circle back to our exit, saw a group of fish we see a lot of eating in the sand and I got a video of them and they let me get real close, I should know the name of them but I don't bigger fish that are black with orange/reddish accents. Off of the sand flats and on the thick deep coral I saw Pam about 20 yards ahead of me upside down taking a photo of something, I got a little closer and saw she found a Feather Duster, no wait two Feather Dusters right next to each other moving with the currents as beautiful as can be, I got the video rolling and slowly approached until she backed away and was able to get pretty close to them and captured them retreating back into the safety of the reef they were attached to. Well as I mentioned with my new wet suit I started out with just 4 pounds of weight, I had gone from 14 with my old Henderson Gold Core 3mm to 6 pounds and it worked so good with 6 I thought I should try 4, well after a few minutes of cruising in on the reef at 15 to 20 ft I motioned to Pam to trade Cameras, the video is 2 to 3 pounds of negative buoyancy and her's is pretty neutral, well when she started sinking and I started floating almost uncontrollably to the surfaced I knew 4 pounds wasn't enough weight my Aluminum 80 still had 900 pounds of air and it would only get worse, we both quickly adjusted and I took my camera back and gave her's back and was able to stay down until I got to about 700 pounds and was pretty much reduced to snorkeling back in. On the way back in I saw a Jack and figured the way it was moving it was working with an Eel for a late morning breakfast and sure enough there was the white mouth under him in the reef. I got a video but it's not a great one. I snorkeled the rest of the way into our exit while Pam stayed submerged, we ran, almost literally in to Mary & Sebastian who we've seen a lot this trip, we stopped to talk to them for just a minute as they were heading out. 8 video's and 6 or 7 pretty good ones. All things considered, this was probably one of the best dives of all time for me.