Question Do you ever practice dropping weights and handling the unexpected ascent?

[Divin'Papaw]

No. I have no need to ditch weights, at depth or otherwise.

 

[dmaziuk]

If you are going to practice it, always make sure to look down first

Up, too.

Though one has to wonder: why? You drop the lead, you'll do a polaris. It's elementary school physics, what's there to "practice"?

 

[rx7diver]

... I remember coming across a wide-eyed diver holding on to the hand rail of a wreck, feet up. He'd lost his weight belt which was on the deck of the wreck. Not sure what his plan was if I hadn't have come along!

When I had just begun diving a drysuit (1993, IIRC), I wore the rubber weight belt (old-school weight belt with a wire buckle) I wore with my two-piece farmer John. On one particular drysuit dive, I was on the surface attempting to reel in my DSMB (a lift bag) that I had sent up from a Mackinaw Straits shipwreck. My wreck line caught my wire buckle and tripped it open, and I lost my belt and my homemade weights. Thereafter I wore a nylon weightbelt with *two* SS buckles whenever I dove my drysuit. You really don't want to accidentally lose your weight belt at depth when you're diving dry!

rx7diver

 

[rongoodman]

If you dive between 3m/10ft and 6m/20ft, you should only have to add a tiny amount of air to your BC to offset the weight of a full cylinder.

Five pounds of air would require about 2 1/2 quarts of air in your BC to offset it.