Whenever I felt the first icy trickle of sea-water going down my leg, my first instinct was denial.
Water couldn’t be getting in! Hadn’t I just spent the better part of a day inhaling toxic fumes as I re-glued and re-taped my drysuit seams?
Surely it was just sweat, or else moisture that was already in the suit. But I knew I was deluding myself. There was a leak somewhere. The suspicion became certainty when I’d stand up later and feel a cup of water sloshing at the bottom of each leg.
Such was the story of this summer and into fall. Every time I thought I had finally walled off every entry point, water found a way. Then I would go back with glue and tape to find the weak point in the seams, refortifying the battlements. My war against the ravages of entropy would take up much of my physical and mental energy for the months I guided kayaks.
The perfection of the drysuit was the goal that I could never quite achieve nor quite let go of.
I knew that if I finally sealed it off, it would open new horizons for my kayaking. I would be able to knock out Eskimo rolls, perform aggressive leans with my torso half-submerged, to fall out of my boat and swim through rapids — while maintaining a dry set of clothes. The old enemies, Cold, Wet and Hypothermia, would still be a threat, but I would be able to hold them off for much longer.
The freedom and security that drysuits offer comes with a hefty price tag: often around $1,000. I got mine for free by way of my dad — who’d also gotten it for free from a friend. I am not sure how old the drysuit is, though I did see a picture of the same drysuit in a book from 1999. The bulk of the suit is made from breathable Gore-Tex fabric and getting in means opening up the large waterproof chest zipper, then forcing hands, feet and head through the five different latex gaskets. The process takes several minutes, and is like giving birth in reverse. There is a relief zipper at the crotch, which is very helpful, though not so much if you’ve had a breakfast of hot oatmeal and feel a movement coming on.
When I picked up the drysuit this spring, all of the gaskets were brittle and cracked. My first project was cutting them out and then gluing new ones in their place with a special marine-grade glue called Aquaseal. This meant creating forms that mimicked wrists, ankles and neck. The place where I worked as a kayak guide had an old neck form lying around, which helped immensely. I stuffed the sleeves and legs full of newspaper.
The Aquaseal was damnably sticky and had a sharp turpentine odor. The tube warned of cancer and reproductive harm. I did the work outside to ventilate. After a few minutes of working with the stuff, I felt a bit lighter and loopy. It was good to walk away. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it much.
I inaugurated the suit for its first test run in Port Angeles Harbor where I was teaching a friend how to Eskimo roll. The performance was spectacular. I’d put a heavy parka under the suit and was so warm that I wanted to roll over into the frigid water to cool down.
Remarkably, when I took the parka off later, I couldn’t find a drop of moisture on it! Success!
I began incorporating Eskimo rolls into my guided kayak tours. Gradually, I began to suspect that water was getting through. It’s just sweat, I tried to tell myself. Indeed, the suit was incredibly hot to work in before getting on the water, which was one reason it was good to roll over for a good soak.
Alas, my illusions vanished after a fateful run down the Elwha River. At a certain notorious rapids section, I found myself being tractor-beamed toward the exact standing wave that I had been determined to avoid. Over I went.
Though I tried desperately to come up into a roll, the thrashing water was having none of that. I pulled the sprayskirt and popped up just in time to fall over the first ledge. I spent several seconds inside a churning white room, then popped up again before yet another drop and another appointment with a white room. I came up gasping and saw a fallen tree right in my path. Swimming like mad, I almost cleared it, but not quite. I thudded against the end of the trunk with my live vest, and bounced around the last couple of feet. After I got on land and recovered my boat, I realized I was completely soaked.
It was time to twist open the tube of Aquaseal again.
My knowledgeable friend, Jarrett had a novel technique for finding the leak. Wearing the suit, I ran the tube of a bicycle pump into the ankle gasket and began inflating myself to sumo wrestler proportions. Then Jarrett walked around spraying the suit with a bottle full of soapy water. Sure enough, there were a couple places along the side of the suit where we could see tiny bubbles coming out.
The problem was in the seams, where the different pieces of waterproof Gore-Tex had been stitched together. The tape had begun to strip away.
I called up the people at Kokatat to ask how I might proceed. They put me through to the repair department, where a helpful man told me I was welcome to ship the suit to Arcata, California where they would take care of it. And no doubt they would do a beautiful job, but I was in no mood to wait a couple weeks.
What if I wanted to do it myself? I persisted.
The guy recommended stuff called Tenacious Tape which could be combined with Aquaseal (both products of the McNett Corporation) to make a fairly bomb-proof seam. He’d even heard of people re-taping seams with duct tape as a temporary measure.
I hung up the phone feeling encouraged. I turned my suit inside out and got to work, using scissors to cut away pieces of the peeling seam tape. I cleaned the area with alcohol and covered it over with the Tenacious Tape and Aquaseal.
The cool thing was that this worked at sealing off the area. The next time I rolled my kayak, I didn’t feel the water coming there.
However, I later discovered other leak points.
It usually took me a week or two of denying the problem to realize, yes, water was coming in through the ankle now, and then I would go back with the Tenacious Tape and Aquaseal. Both products are expensive, and I have no doubt that I spent well over a hundred dollars on them throughout the summer.
The kiss of death happened when a zipper pull tab came went off the rails. Both my boss at the kayak outfit and the people at Kokatat said that the suit was screwed. I could mail it to Kokatat and they would re-do it for $200. I had a suspicion that if I did this, they would take a look at the beater suit, laugh and tell me I should try a suit that had been manufactured in the last decade.
Meanwhile, a busted zipper meant that the drysuit was next to useless. I could buy a new one or I could go back to guiding in a Farmer John wetsuit as I had for two previous seasons. I did borrow a wetsuit for a couple of days, did an Eskimo roll, and realized that even my leaky drysuit was still way better then a Farmer John. I came up out of the water frigid, and determined to make the drysuit work.
I did a little searching online for zipper repair info with mixed results. I bought a zipper repair kit from the local outdoor store and realized that I could probably work with the zipper I had if I finagled it back on. Once I got it in place, I had to glob Aquaseal and some tape back onto the ends of the zipper to make my own stopper. The fix was crude, and it was questionable as to whether it would actually keep the water out, but the first results were encouraging. I also enjoyed having my friends ask me how the hell I’d managed to get the toasted zipper back together.
But later, I found more leakage coming in. Small amounts of moisture were infiltrating. Whether it was coming through the seams or through the zipper was a good question. I reinforced both with dollops of Aquaseal.
I also reflected on how I’d known multiple people who’d owned drysuits that leaked. Indeed, knowing that drysuits have a propensity to leak in one place or another had made me hesitate to buy one to begin with.
Another kayaking friends in Port Angeles explained that he basically assumed that any drysuit he’d owned was bound to leak at some point. They were sensitive. It was easy to mess up the seam tape or poke a hole somewhere. For that reason, he tended to wear his wetsuit on routine trips and only break out the drysuit on longer distance trips or on outings where capsizing posed a serious hypothermia threat.
Being a sensitive beast, the drysuit requires all kinds of delicate care, including applying and reapplying a substance called 303 to the different gaskets so that they don’t stiffen up and break (the way my neck gasket broke when I stuck my head through it earlier this year and forced me to replace it.) After any trip involving salt water, I’d blast the suit down with a hose to get the salt off. I’ve also reapplied waterproofing spray to the outside of the suit. Vaseline on zippers helps keep them waterproof and makes it more likely that the relief zipper will open during a moment of need.
Such mindfulness exercises have been helpful to me as I work to cultivate diligence in myself and resist the urge to throw the drysuit off in a soggy heap at the end of a long day on the water.
My attempts to fortify the suit have had some success but never perfection. Water is a pernicious and determined adversary, worthy of respect.
A medieval knight might have gazed fondly upon his armor, even treasured the dings and cracks that are reminders of old battles; so do I value this Gore-Tex and latex armor that protects me from life-destroying cold. The hours I’ve invested into repairing the suit has only increased its value
I think of all the time I’ve spent and the chemicals I’ve exposed myself to just to make repairs, and it makes me think about just how much more labor and resources are required to make one of these suits. Few people who wear a drysuit are going to see the machines and people who work to put them together, but by working to repair mine, I felt as though I got a small taste of this. How much work would I be flushing down the toilet if I were to scrap the suit and buy another one?
I haven’t put the suit on for a while. Most of my winter adventures have been off the water, but I can’t help but think it would be fun to go out and see the seals again, to tool around in some January waves.
There’s a drysuit in the basement, a tube of Aquaseal in the freezer. It looks like I’ve got work to do.
