I actually didn’t intend for it to be a wetsuit/drysuit post at the beginning. I actually said what can I buy as a kind of baseline set of clothes that will be useful in future while happily putting off the wetsuit/drysuit sort of decision until after taking the course in April.
The thing is, it’s easy for a thread to devolve into a wetsuit/drysuit type of discussion (or heated argument in some cases) from what I’ve seen in other posts. In some cases the original thread had nothing to do with what to wear at all, it may have had to do with what boat to get, or it was an invitation to paddle with other people. However if that invitation is given in a place that is not Hawaii or Florida, inevitably people start slipping into talking about immersion gear.
It’s not surprising. I see with COVID-19 that people will hang up all other considerations in their life in order to focus narrowly and intensely on a particular threat to life or well-being. I would like to also enjoy kayaking, which is a problem that is extending to every activity in my life as I am surrounded by pretty covid-cautious people who don’t want to go out to restaurants or go to indoor public places, or don’t want to take a flight, etc.
tldr; These days fun is hard. It’s more a game of survival it seems, which I suppose describes 99.5% of human history before modern comforts were invented.
I do these things all the time like many people especially in winter. I don’t really care about paddling in the winter, especially not with any sort of regularity. I can also go to Hawaii or San Diego and rent a kayak in winter, and I have friends or family in both places. Philippines again too (eventually), as my wife’s family is mostly from there and still living there. The water is incredibly warm and clear, it’s amazing.