Cressi Glacier
- Tom Redcap
- Feb 28, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 7, 2024
Does the name hold up on this drysuit ? If I think of diving in a Glacier, then I think of diving in freaking cold waters. To tell you right away I didn't went to a Glacier for this one, but a few nice ice dives under the frozen surface of Weissensee in austria offered me some potential to talk about the suit. I will come to that in a minute, first let's talk about some facts and where the suit is placed in the world of dry suits.
The Glacier is the successor of the Cressi Desert and is a neoprene drysuit. There are a lot of discussions on weather to use neoprene or trilaminate, but I think it's not a questions of which is supreme, cause both materials have their pros and cons, it's a questions of what you want to do with your suit. In my case a trilaminate was just to expensive at the time I went into dry suit diving and I had no problem with a suit a little heavier on travel or having to use more weight. So neoprene just fitted into that purpose and of course as you might know I love & trust Cressi and at the end this also mattered to me and still does today when I choose my dive gear. So everyone of us has his favorite brands and at least I loved the look of it - I think the designers did great on this one.
So now some hard facts and my thoughts on it:
Precompressed high density 4mm neoprene in the well known Cressi quality. It might be subjective, but for me touching the Cressi neoprene of their suits feels like quality, a very pleasant touch. And it is precompressed, which basically helps to stop the loss of isolation while diving deeper.
The collar and cuffs are out of latex and are easy to enter. The collar has also a layer of 1.5 mm neoprene to it for better thermal protection in this area - clever design choice.
Shoulders, upper back, hips, lumbar area and knees are additionally protected with anti-abrasion x-diamond pad lining of Cressi to extend the lifespan of the suit - and by the way to make it look good.
you get a storage pocket on each leg, great for all the extra gear you take with you - like a surface marker buoy.
the vents are from Si-Tech and there for among the best on the market.
So I think that's pretty impressive in its class and for its price performance ratio.
For my undergarment I choose the Cressi Baselayer of recycled polyester and recycled spandex. Lightweight and pleasant to the skin. And for extra warmth I added a second Layer - the J2 of fourth element and Fourth Element Arctic Socks. As gloves I choose Rolock Dry Gloves and Fourth Element Glove Liners and I used a Cressi 5mm hood and Cressi 5mm Isla Boots . . . . And then there came the icy waters of the Weissensee.
On the dives through the Ice hole we had a water temperature of 5.5° celsius (131°Fahrenheit) beneath the icy surface. The dives took around 20 minutes each. I was shooting videos with the Cam so we went really slow and relaxed and what can I say ? I felt totally warm and cozy, just on spot. So the first test was absolutely satisfying and no drawback to the trilaminate ones of my buddies. Even at the safety stop where we barely moved I experienced three warm minutes hovering under the ice.
As we got out if the ice hole I took of my gear and stayed in the drysuit to assist the next team going into the ice and taking lead of the safety line. And that was the next test for the Glacier: Staying warm in a wet (only from the outside) neoprene drysuit at the shore of a lake in the mountains of Austria (~930 meters above sea level) with 2.2.° celsius (71.6° Fahrenheit) air temperature.
The Neoprene dried really fast and I stayed in the drysuit for a couple of hours each day between the ice dives - nothing to complain about.
It feels great, it dives great, it looks great - it is great !
