Snorkeling Alaska: Cold Water Wetsuit Test

Still dry in my wetsuit

 Snorkeling in Alaska!

  This week I wanted to put our wetsuits to the test. Here in Southeast Alaska the ocean temperature is hovering around 40 degrees, unless you get too close to a glacier where the temperature plummets even farther. Our wetsuits include a 7mm bib, 7mm ¾ jacket, 5mm hood, 5mm gloves, and 5mm booties. You are pretty well covered. Even your face is mostly covered by your mask and snorkel setup. Still, it is a wetsuit, not a dry suit. So water does flood inside all of those layers of neoprene but hopefully your body can heat it up and insulate for warmth. This was the test.

  Our snorkel location and timing were chosen after careful researching of the tides and conditions. Some of the islands off of Cape Fanshaw have been productive in the past so we headed to one in particular where mid-morning we should experience a -4.1ft tide, thus exposing the usual intertidal life above water and getting us snorkelers deeper into the subtidal life. The high tide was +17.3ft so if we missed slack low tide the current cause by a 21 foot tidal swing might prove difficult.

Not in Hawaii anymore

  One of my guides, myself, and 3 brave guests slipped into the water off the small inflatable boat around 9:45am to an extreme low tide and about 15  feet of visibility, which is pretty good here in southeast Alaska. The rush of cold water was more like a chilling seep of water but after a few minutes the wetsuit started doing its job. After 45 minutes the only thing cold were my fingers which is pretty impressive. And that was remedied by a hot cup of cocoa immediately after getting out!

Sunflower Star

Can you spot the sculpin?

  The low tide did provide some great wildlife opportunities. We spotted a very large sculpin camouflaging in with the kelp, as well as some smaller fish darting about. I saw a small eel, most likely a wolf eel. There were tons of crabs climbing around as well as shrimp of all sizes that I had not seen snorkeling here before. I found some nudibranch eggs but no nudibranchs…even though I spent most of the time sifting through the kelp looking for them. Add some cool looking chitins, massive sunflower stars, sea cucumbers and an uncountable number of plumose anemones and you’ve got yourself a pretty incredible cold water Alaska snorkel.

Sea Cucumber and Anemones

Bright Red Hermit Crab

Caught a sunflower star

Crab life in underwater Alaska

Plumose Anemone Garden