It is time to say goodbye to my Stohlquist Mango Orange Dry Suit. Eight years of use, it has served me very well. So well that one time I wrote a post called "I love my dry suit."
I have worn it, at one time or another, where ever I have sailed. Maine, in the cold and the fog. South Carolina, with several layers of thermals, shirts and sweaters, when the temperature would not deign to climb above 41 degrees.
On Chesapeake Bay, with the cold fronts of fall bringing a chill rain. Under bright blue skies on the Pasquotank River in December, 35 degrees and a crisp north wind.
I wore it at Mud Hole at Great Wass Island in Maine as the remnants of a hurricane filled the air with moisture.
It kept me dry for three days under the boom tent on the upper reaches of Dowry Creek as I waited out a stubborn nor'easter that found no reason to leave the coast.
And, regrettably, I had forgotten I was wearing it when I walked into a hotel lobby in Jesup, Georgia, drawing odd looks for everyone in the lobby. I mean, really, is it that out of the ordinary that someone would wear a mango orange dry suit while checking into a hotel thirty miles from the coast?
After all that wear and tear, some dampness began to creep through the material. And then the latex neck gasket, one that I meticulously maintained with routine coatings of silicone spray, tore.
Stohlquist, the maker of the drysuit, rated at the time both the best and the least expensive dry suit, is no longer in business. (Darn you, private equity!).
The new drysuit, bought on the recommendation of Aussie Matt, will arrive in a few days. It is made by by NRS and cost me three times as much as the Stohlquist. But on chilly, rainy days, sailing on cold winter water where survival is in question, it will be worth every penny.
