2airishuman
Contributor
For all you well-seasoned divers out there... have you ever been in or witnessed a situation where dropping weights for yourself, buddy, or other diver was a critical factor in preventing or managing an emergency or near emergency type of scenario?
No, but they do occur, most often at the surface, but not always.
...I usually stick about 2lbs into each 10lb pocket which obvious holds lots of unused space for more weight. When diving with an AL80, I put about 3 lbs in each pocket plus about 2 or 3 lbs into two trim pockets I can slide onto the tank band.
Basically, what I'm asking is: Will I die?
It depends on a bunch of things. For me:
- How negative I am, at depth, at the beginning of the dive, considering the accuracy of my weighting, compressiblity of my suit, and the amount of gas I have.
- Most people can swim up 10 pounds without much trouble.
- The extent and reliability of surface support I have, considering the distance to shore.
- Most scenarios where ditching is critical occur at the surface.
- What is acceptable when there are observant people watching for me, on a boat, is not the same is what is acceptable on a shore dive.
- The depth and safety of the bottom.
- Wall dives pose obvious risks.
- Sharp debris, standing timber, black layers, entanglement risks, and mud bottoms that pose a silt-out risk can be just as bad.
- Current, particularly the risk of any downward current.
- Downwelling currents are a major common factor in accidental deaths involving accomplished divers working within traditional rec limits.
- And were present (but never conclusively determined to be a factor) in two separate deaths of highly accomplished divers who used to participate at ScubaBoard.
- A downwelling may make it impossible to swim up a negative rig in the event of a buoyancy failure
- Downwelling currents are a major common factor in accidental deaths involving accomplished divers working within traditional rec limits.
- The actual difficulty involved in ditching any non-ditchable or hard-to-ditch weight.
- Things like a stainless steel backplate, negative cylinders, and STAs can't be ditched without ditching the rig
- Pockets on a cam band are almost as bad
- A belt inside a crotch strap is somewhere in between, as are weight pouches that are accessible but not designed for easy ditching
- Whether I'm bringing a slung pony
- On some dives my emergency buoyancy plan is to put a line on my kit, ditch it, and ascend on the line while breathing from the pony
I also use a rubber weight belt. I think I have one from Mako and one from Leisure Pro, and they're nearly identical.