Wearing the board shorts every time, and the heat shirt in the spring/fall when the water was a little cool took care of everything I needed clothes-wise for about 95% of the skiing times.

But I have some pretty diehard friends. They go as late as possible into the season, usually into October, and as early in the year, usually May. In New England, the water can be a little chilly.

So I took the Christmas tips I got from my dog walking business and treated myself to a wetsuit.

This is the one I got:

O’Neill Wet Suit



I did some research online first and found out some things.

1. What you want for waterskiing is any wetsuit that is advertised for water sports. That includes surfing, wind surfing, etc. The difference is that these suits are especially made for flexibility when doing these activities, unlike scuba diving wetsuits where you don’t need to move around much.

2. One way they get this flexibility is by having two different thicknesses of neoprene. The suit I got is a 3/2 which means 3mm of thickness in the body and legs for added warmth, but 2mm in the arms where you need more movement.

3. The other way to get the needed movement in your wetsuit is the type of neoprene. There’s regular, but then there’s Super Stretch neoprene. This latter type makes it easier to get the wetsuit on and gives you more freedom of movement.

I haven’t actually used it yet, but I tried it on and it fits great. The neck is a little tight, but it’s supposed to be to keep water from flowing in/out.

I have a few wetsuit tips:

• The zipper is supposed to be in the back, not front. Why they make it this way, I’ll never know because even with that long ribbon on the end of the zipper, it’s really, really hard to zip up.
  
  
• Most wetsuits have some kind of velcro tab at the neck so you can get a snug fit, as this suit does. But the ‘hook’ side of velcro will chew up your suit if it touches the neoprene. My suit came with a tiny piece of fabric in shipping, probably to keep the velcro from touching what it wasn’t supposed to. I plan to try to shove this between the velcro pieces as soon as I undo the tab so that the velcro won’t touch the rest of the suit when I’m getting it off. I’ll just keep it in the pocket of my board shorts.
  
  
• The easiest way to remove a wetsuit is to peel it off inside out. The hard part is putting it back on if it’s wet, so try not to take it off until you’re done for the day.