Booties or neoprene socks in Winter?

[V]

Most straps don't let you fit booties into them. To solve the problem, there's two things you can do:

1) Cut a block of aluminum or wood for each side (4 total) and drill a hole in the center for the screw. Get 4 longer stainless steel screws from Home Depot. Unscrew and rescrew the straps on with the blocks between the strap and the board to raise the overall height of the strap to allow more room for the booties.

2) Get neoprene socks and just open up the straps a bit (you may not even need to adjust them). Your feet should stay warm in socks (I use only socks). However, sometimes the sand (being like sandpaper) will grind the socks as you walk around enough to undo the stitching and wear 'em out. Solution would be to get a tube of shoe-goo from Walmart, or something, and spread it on the bottoms of each foot (while you have them on so they form-fit - will take 30 min. to dry) and a light coat on the threads, as well. This insulates the water, your feet, making them even warmer, and also makes 'em last a lot longer. THis is what I did and it works great.

[bcruz]

I have some real warm booties which were nice, but I couldn't get them into my straps at all. For me, socks seem to be pretty much doing the trick, even in the extremely cold water. They do wear out pretty quickly without the shoe goo, especially if you drag around in the sand a bunch, but they are only $20 or so to replace.

[V]

Oneill makes some boots that are super warm for $40. Planning to get some. The booties I have are too spongy on my feet. Without the additional support and snugness of the material around my shin, the booty is all over the place and its hard to land when your booty AND board are sliding around your feet. I lost my board yesterday several times unable to "feel" that the board was slipping off my feet.

I think with more secure boots, I would be able to tell and it would be more warm. My feet get numb after about an hour and a half these days.