Polar Bear 8mm Rubatex Hood Review January 12, 2007
Posted by Andy Carroll in : Equipment, scuba gear , trackback
Well, I bought one of these hoods before Christmas and now it has a few dives in it I though I should tell people just how good it is.
When I first purchased it I had heard mixed reports, well, bad reports really. Howard Radcliffe had one and seemed to be happy with it whilst Bob Cooper had returned his as he didn’t like the fit. The guys at Polar Bear said they would happily let me return it if it didn’t fit, so I ordered a Medium and handed over my £40. For that you get an 8mm hood in black with red lining. It is made from what is called Nitrogen Blown neoprene, which basically means it does not compress as much as other neoprene at depth, giving it better thermal properties. It is contoured to fit the head and neck area very closely.
I am a great believer that if you focus on keeping your head and ‘core’ warm then you can worry less about your hands. I prefer to wear 3mm gloves and so far I have been wearing 3mm gloves without feeling the cold at all, which is just the way I want it.
When I first tried the hood dry, out of the packaging it was really hard to get on as the hood is contoured to the shape of your head, and as the material is so thick it makes it hard. It was initially extremely tight, to the point of giving me earache and headache, but I thought that I would give it a chance, get my hair cut , and see if it would loosen up after diving. Wearing it in the office is perhaps not the best way to impress your colleagues and evaluate a diving hood. I also liked the fact that it was a simple black hood, with no advertising or logos on it. I prefer to be paid if I am going to advertise at a dive site
Trying it with all my dive gear on was interesting. The hood initially puts some pressure on my adams apple which makes me sometimes feel like gagging and cough a bit, but I have found that this also depends on how I have set up the latex neck seal on my suit. I like the fact that it doesn’t have the warm neck collar and so I don’t have to fanny about tucking the neck in, and I like the idea that if I need to I can reach my neck seal in an emergency, which is one of the DIR recommendations.
In the water, it is warm, the warmest hood I have ever had, toasty warm, really warm, comfortably warm. Did I mention that it is warm?
I could probably put some holes in the top but at the moment I have been quite happy with looking down every now and again to let the gas release, or by simply pressing my head with my hand allowing gas to escape that way. Although it is contorued to the head, it still collects bubbles .
Although it did initially feel really tight and on the first couple of dives I developed neckache due to I think a combination of tightness and the bubbles creating positive bouyancy putting upward pressure on my head, it has loosened up a bit and is now very comfortable and to be honest, I don’t think I could go back to my useless DUI hood which is now languishing in the bottom of my kit box.
After it is wet, then I no longer have the gagging feeling above the water, so I expect that this will diminish further over time, but it is not such a big problem, and I suspect this is more to do with individuals than a particular design problem with the hood.
Overall, I am not sure the hood is for everyone as fit will be important, but the hood is really well put together, fits me fine, and extremely warm.
Comments»
I took your advice Andy and ordered one.
Well done Fiona, hope you get on well with it