Buoyancy Check in Monterey, CA

[sffrenchman]

Hello all:

I have a very silly question. I previously dived in Monterey, CA with a rental drysuit and undergarment and had my weight pretty well tuned . I recently bought a dry suit and undergarment and would need to adjust my buoyancy again.

My silly question is how best to do this from a practical standpoint. If diving from a boat, it would be easy by exchanging weights while your buddy is still on the boat, but how do you do this easily if diving from the shore? Do you go with you buddy with extra weights, tune your buoyancy and go back to the shore to drop any extra weights before starting the dive? Was hoping that there may be a better way to do this without having to get out of the water, and go back to the car to drop the weights...

Thanks for any tips you may have.

 

[TSandM]

Not specific to Monterey, but I think this is a bit of an issue for any shore diving site. You have a couple of choices -- you can dive overweighted and shed the weight on the next dive, or you can take the weight back to the car, or you can try to store the unwanted weight somewhere. Unfortunately, I've had weights stolen when they were tucked underneath driftwood in a mesh bag, and I have had them taken when they were left underwater in a bag. One could, I suppose, try leaving them underwater in a bag with a big wetnote on it saying, "We did a weight check, and I"m going to pick these up on the way home. Please leave them alone!" But with lead costing what it does these days, I'm not sure that would work, either.

I think I'd make sure I had ENOUGH weight to do the dive, and suffer with the overweighting until I got home. But then again, the guys in Monterey leave X-tables on the beach, and if you did that in Seattle, you'd never see your table again. So you may have more options.

 

[mikemill]

Get a float that you can put spare weights in and go to Breakwater. Just make sure you can identify your float out of the sea of floats

 

[sffrenchman]

Get a float that you can put spare weights in and go to Breakwater. Just make sure you can identify your float out of the sea of floats

Oh great! One more piece of equipment to buy!!!! LOL

 

[Gombessa]

An important aspect of your weighting needs to be done when your tanks are near empty - at about 500psi. This means the best time to do the check may be after the first dive, and when you're back near shore. So, as TS&M suggests: since you already have a decent idea of what your ballpark weighting should be, just do your first dive, and at the end of the dive head back towards shore and drain your tank to 400-500psi when you get to about about 10ft of water. Now, if you can let all the air out of your wing, put minimal gas in your drysuit and still hover at 10ft depth, you'll be properly weighted. If you sink, hand off weight to your buddy to hold. If you're too light, have your buddy pass you some of his weight.

Once you're done, just end the dive as you normally, carry the weight back to your car and make any permanent adjustments to your weight belt/pouch during the SI for your second dive.

 

[Jim Ernst]

An important aspect of your weighting needs to be done when your tanks are near empty - at about 500psi. This means the best time to do the check may be after the first dive, and when you're back near shore. So, as TS&M suggests: since you already have a decent idea of what your ballpark weighting should be, just do your first dive, and at the end of the dive head back towards shore and drain your tank to 400-500psi when you get to about about 10ft of water. Now, if you can let all the air out of your wing, put minimal gas in your drysuit and still hover at 10ft depth, you'll be properly weighted. If you sink, hand off weight to your buddy to hold. If you're too light, have your buddy pass you some of his weight.

Once you're done, just end the dive as you normally, carry the weight back to your car and make any permanent adjustments to your weight belt/pouch during the SI for your second dive.

Nice post Ken!

I second kens advice!