Cold water drink Vs. Maui drink??

[Winesmile]

I dove Wednesday with my J-Type 7mm, AL80 tank and 22lbs of weight.

At the beginning of the dive - zero air in my BC I had to pull down the anker line until I was sub 10-15' before I could descend unassisted.

With 500psi in my tank I couldn't make my safety stop without kicking down for the full three mins! While at depth, actually sub 10-15' I had no problems and used very little air in my BC.

Under those same equipment conditions how much more weight should I carry??

Also, while in Maui is a 3/2 suite the norm? How much weight under those conditions??

 

[DiveMaven]

How much exposure protection you might wear in Maui depends on the time of year, your cold tolerance, and how much repetitive diving you plan to do. I've seen everything from just a t-shirt to a 7 mil Farmer Jane in August when the water is 79 degrees. Frankly, when I go to Maui I dive a lot, so I wear a 5mil full suit, but my husband is fine in a 3mil (though I think we're going to get him a vest to layer for winter temps).

The situation described above says to me that you should be adding 2# to your belt to start. If that isn't enough to keep you at 15' with 500psi in your tank, add another 2#....repeat until you get the weighting right.

 

[Charlie99]

The weight of the air in your AL80 tank is about 6 pounds. So with 500psi in your tank you will be 5 pounds lighter. You would have the same difficulty getting down if you tried it with 500psi in your tank, with another 5 pounds of lead (27 total).

Working in your favor though, is the fact that at the beginning of the first dive of the day, your wetsuit and other gear is dry, and it takes a while to get saturated. So you will need a bit of extra weight for just the 5 minutes or so it takes for the wetsuit get saturated. (A wet wetsuit weighs more than a dry one -- right? But it takes up the same space. So a wet wetsuit has less buoyancy than a dry one).

Being a couple pounds overweight is much less problem than being a couple pounds under. I'd add 6 pounds to start with, and then check my buoyancy at the end of each dive. It's nice to be able to have a controlled ascent all the way to the surface, so I prefer to be weighted such, by breathing with lungs mostly towards empty, that I can hold a stop at 5'.

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Many divers use 3/2 or 3 mil fullsuits year round in Maui. New divers, who move around a lot, and have shorter dives due to higher air consumption will do fine in a 3/2 wetsuit. Less neoprene also makes buoyancy control easier.

To determine your 3/2 weighting one method is to check it out in a pool, and then add 1 pound per 40 pounds of total dive weight of you + all gear including tank and lead (Add 6 pounds for normal sized people).

The other method is to work on your 7mm weighting until you get it right. Then measure the buoyancy of the two wetsuit by seeing how much lead it takes to sink each. The difference is your weighting difference.