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Sounds like you're slightly underweighted if barely touching your inflator would make you rise. As far as weighting yourself correctly goes, you weight yourself so that with a full tank, an empty BC and fully exhaled, you should just barely bobbing underneath the surface or sinking ever slowly.I am concerned about the amount of weight I need to use, and how I either sink or bob, with no in-between. The slightest BCD inflation...and I mean slightest...causes me to rise like a balloon.
Get a DUI weight harness or integrated weight BC. Like you, I'm generous in the middle, and weight belt shifts like crazy. Hated that.Though I put the belt tighter than my jeans, the weights slide around me to make me list from one side to the other.
With a 7mm suit and gloves and hood, I have trouble seating my mask. If the hood isn't so tight it cuts off circulation, it collects exhausted air and inflates.
In the tests, getting water in my nose makes me feel like I am drowning, and I do not want to be a hassle to whomever I dive with.
Remember when you took your open water test and there was the one, usually an overweight old woman, who you thought, "They have no sense being in the water, much less in scuba gear,"?
That was me, except I'm a guy. I am not whining. I am pissed at myself.
I showed up late (because the quarry is out in the boondocks where one wrong turn and you got some hillbilly moonshiner commenting how you have pretty teeth, and I got lost). I needed a ton of weight, and that made me unstable. I panicked and headed to the surface just before the end of the tests. And, I was so much trouble that my buddy abandoned me because I was holding him back.
So, now that I have a card that says I can rent gear whenever I want, I do not want to be THAT guy whom you read about, after asking, "Why doesn't he post anymore?" to find out he drowned.
I've read all I found about diving, concerning the things I needed to know to pass my test. (I avoided filling my head with info about stuff I have no sense reading about, other than pony bottles.) So, I have book knowledge.
What advice can you give me so that I don't do too much too fast and make horrible errors?
I am concerned about the amount of weight I need to use, and how I either sink or bob, with no in-between. The slightest BCD inflation...and I mean slightest...causes me to rise like a balloon. Though I put the belt tighter than my jeans, the weights slide around me to make me list from one side to the other.
With a 7mm suit and gloves and hood, I have trouble seating my mask. If the hood isn't so tight it cuts off circulation, it collects exhausted air and inflates.
In the tests, getting water in my nose makes me feel like I am drowning, and I do not want to be a hassle to whomever I dive with.