A near death experience, trying-on a dry-suit in a changing booth, a few years ago
left me huddled in a corner at home, clutching my wet-suit against my chest and sucking my thumb.

Then I learned you're supposed to trim that #*@!!! neck gasket.

Well, after lengthy therapy, I'm ready to give it a try again.
But first, this time, a few questions for the dry-suit masters.

If I go back to the scene of the crime, can I try on a dry-suit
for size without the neck gasket in place?

I read some of the posts in the archives about tightness and trimming
gaskets and now I'm feeling like maybe I'll just wear the old wet suit.

Can you take the neck gasket off and trim and test fit without the
whole dry-suit? How expensive are spare neck gaskets?

Anything more comfortable on the horizon????

Man, I hate neck ties! Guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and
learn to love neck gaskets. How tight do they need to be to be waterproof.
Any test,like, one finger in the gasket's okay, two fingers and you black-out?

I've seen the one piece union suit style polypro base layers. These make
sense so you don't get "cold crack syndrome", but what about more layers?

Do you just put them on and let them ride where the may or do folks use
suspenders to keep things in place?

I've done a fair amount of research and figured that since I overheat easily,
to spend the extra for Gore Tex. Since these things are called dry-suits I thought
I get one with the relief zipper instead of using the old wet-suit warming method.

I'm looking a Kokatat Gore Tex GMER with relief zipper and integral gore tex socks.

I assume you have to get over-sized water shoes to use with these socks,
since you'd want regular socks inside. Is this so? How much bigger do you
need to go? I don't want to win a Bozo the clown contest!

Thanks,

Rob