Should I wear my dry suit every time I go in the ocean

Here is a safety question do all of you always wear your dry suits in the ocean ? Even in the summer .?

The only time and place you can get away with not wearing a dry suit in the "salt" is a 90+ degree day on the puget sound, and you damned well better be physically capable of pulling you butt back in your boat quickly or you'll be in trouble within minutes.

Crabbing off Camano Is this summer I left the dry suit on the beach.  Even with very minimal layers on underneath I'd have par-boiled myself in my own sweat had I used it.  I jumped in to practice self-rescue a couple times.  Water was not even especially cold.

That said, this weekend out at Hobuck I wore it and it never crossed my mind not to. 

Most people need the water to be around 70 to spend time in the water with no thermal barrier.  Even at that temp i've heard of a kid who went hypothermic from spending around 3 hours in near 70 degree water on a sunny day.

I know it's an old topic, but it can hit 100-degrees in Brookings in the summer when the Brookings Effect offshore winds are carrying hot air in from the Medford area.  90+ degree days aren't uncommon.

The sea will still be around 50-degrees, but the air temperature can be twice that several miles offshore.

Do the white T-shirt thing.  Or try to find an old karate gi that you can wear on top of the drysuit.  They're baggy and very easy to get out of should the need arise.

I know it's an old topic, but it can hit 100-degrees in Brookings in the summer when the Brookings Effect offshore winds are carrying hot air in from the Medford area.  90+ degree days aren't uncommon.

The sea will still be around 50-degrees, but the air temperature can be twice that several miles offshore.

Do the white T-shirt thing.  Or try to find an old karate gi that you can wear on top of the drysuit.  They're baggy and very easy to get out of should the need arise.

I use a 3mm farmer John wetsuit in these conditions. Water temp is usually a little higher than 50 too. Sometimes almost 60 like this year. I wouldn't go out without at minimum a wetsuit appropriate for water temperature unless temps were over 70.

+1 on the farmer John, maybe stash a dry top on the boat in case conditions get sporty.  A short sleave full suit (2 or 3 mm) is another good option.  If the water is pushing low 60s which does happen after a few days of south winds you could lose the booties as well.

Wear a huge white wet T shirt over your drysuit if you need to cool off.  Or dump some of that cold water over your head to remind yourself why you are wearing your drysuit. 

As many that know me can attest, I wear a lot more clothes under my drysuit every time I am on the ocean than I do on the coldest, wettest day of the year.  I am a shorts, T-shirt, and light fleece pullover kind of guy year round, but I respect the cold Pacific ocean and will happily sweat as needed to be safe. 

Back in the day when I had wetsuits laying around for diving and windsurfing, that would be my choice for a hot day on a cold ocean as Mojo and others have mentioned. For those who haven't used them, it may seem counterintuitive, but it's easy to cool off in a wetsuit--even a thick one. With the first immersion, water rushes in, and that water is cold. But, it heats up quickly between your skin and the insulating neoprene. When I use a wetsuit on warm days, I jump into the water often to stay cool--lots of re-entry practice. A white t-shirt over a dark wetsuit provides a bit more time before I'm par boiling again, as much due to evaporation as the lighter color.

15 years ago, before multiple shoulder surgeries, I would have been able to swim from the fishing grounds at PC to the beach in good wind and current conditions without insulation. But in similar situations I still wore a full wetsuit. The problem is that by the time you're in the sh#t and know that you are in a dire situation, you're unlikely to be in a good physical situation and will be in a very stressful mental situation.

So, yes, be prepared for immersion and respect the ocean:  I love her, but she is more powerful than we can imagine, even on her kind days.

FWIW, I did have a 'learning experience' off the Oregon coast in the winter of '97 that was very educational. I was lucky and countered poor preparation (insulation) and a bad decision to launch with a few good ones before hypothermia got the best of me; otherwise I'd be a forgotten statistic.

Yeah, a wetsuit will work on hot days, and I have nothing bad to say about them other than you'd have two immersion suits and have to guess which one will be right for the entire day.

The water temperature off of Brookings is the same as everywhere else once you leave the beach behind you - cold - and on the hottest days, you're likely to get into a sudden heavy fog.  Brookings can be a mighty foggy place in the Summer.

I'm going to cast my vote with INSAYN on this one.  You already have a drysuit.  Use it.  Dress for the cold water and if you feel toasty, use the cold water to cool yourself down - and if that still doesn't work for you, then get a wetsuit.