Drysuit (shell) and weight.

[Flightlead]

No air in the BC.

I was using the drysuit for everything.

Next time I really think I'm going the BC route for buoyancy.

Yes. In spite of what PADI tells you in their drysuit course, you put only the minimum amount of air in the suit necessary to ensure you are unrestricted in movement. Use your BC/Wing as it is supposed to be used. Just remember, you are now managing two air bladders that have to be vented or filled as you ascend/descend.

EDIT: In reading some of the other responses I can see two camps forming here. The answer expressed by Perrone and myself are one camp, those of diverbri et al the other. I suppose you'll have to make a decision based on the direction you anticipate heading wrt tech diving.

 

[White Knight]

I'm 6'1" 205 lbs, dive a steel 100 and wear a DUI CF200 compressed neopreme dry suit. I use a SCUBAPRO Night Hawk BC......I use a total of 30lbs in salt water. You sound really heavy to me. I bet you could drop the weight to "at least" 35 lbs. The seals are tough. If you only dove heavy one day they will live.

 

[PerroneFord]

I suppose you'll have to make a decision based on the direction you anticipate heading wrt tech diving.

Or, you can choose a path that will take you from whatever diving you do today through any type of diving you could possibly do later... or you can choose a path where you will have to retrain yourself later should you choose to do more advanced forms of diving.

I bought a drysuit because I was doing technical diving. I did not buy the suit and later made the choice to do technical diving. My path was chosen for me.

Red pill / Blue Pill

 

[divebri]

do you find, as you descend and become more negative, that you need to put air in your drysuit for comfort/flexibility?
Secondly, does putting enough air in the bc to be comfortable/flexible put you either neutral or very close?

Next question, on ascent, you have your left hand on the bc dump button, right? do you have your arm above the drysuit exhaust valve? do you have to change positions or drop the bc hose to dump your drysuit air? Can you dump both at the same time, or do you have to switch off?

I have dove with some cavers, and I don't recall them using their bc below the surface. I do recall they were PERFECTLY weighted, though.

BTW, I appreciate the debate. I see the major source of the OP's problem as overweighting. If that problem is cured, our differences on how to manage bouyancy become fairly insignificant.

 

[spt29970]

I don't think the question of whether or not to use the BC is going to be solved here, but getting back to the original poster's question, she was clearly massively overweighted, especially in fresh water. Like White.Knight, I use 30lbs total. I am 5'10" and 220lbs. I have have DUI Flex50/50 and I dive a steel 100. I don't know how much I would drop in fresh water, but I suspect that I would drop down to around 24lb. Reefwatcher probably should have only had around 26lbs to start. It is amazing that she could control her buoyancy at all!

 

[PerroneFord]

do you find, as you descend and become more negative, that you need to put air in your drysuit for comfort/flexibility?

Almost always unless it is a VERY shallow dive. I typically add a burst at 20-30ft, then again at 50-60ft. I noticed on the dive on Sunday, that I added a bit more around 90ft-100ft.

Secondly, does putting enough air in the bc to be comfortable/flexible put you either neutral or very close?

I assume you mean putting enough air in the drysuit. But at the start of the dive, I need quite a bit of air in the wing. With 240cuft of gas on my back plus a stage, I'm pretty negative.

Next question, on ascent, you have your left hand on the bc dump button, right?

No.

do you have your arm above the drysuit exhaust valve?

No.

do you have to change positions or drop the bc hose to dump your drysuit air?

No.

Can you dump both at the same time, or do you have to switch off?

Switch off. The drysuit dumps automatically in most ascents. I use the butt dump on the BC.

I have dove with some cavers, and I don't recall them using their bc below the surface. I do recall they were PERFECTLY weighted, though.

Where did you dive with them? I don't know any cavers who are perfectly weighted from beginning to end. The sheer amount of gas you need negates it. Even in Mexico with twin 80s, you have 12 pounds of gas to start the dive and diving thirds you'd come home with only 4-6 pounds. Diving the twin 104s or twin 130s that are common here, you're packing a LOT of gas, and the tanks themselves are quite negative as well.

BTW, I appreciate the debate. I see the major source of the OP's problem as overweighting. If that problem is cured, our differences on how to manage bouyancy become fairly insignificant.

Once the overweighting is solved, the buoyancy management will certainly become easier, I don't know that I'd call it insignificant.

 

[ClayJar]

I do not EVER use my bc under water. I don't use it for two reasons: One, 'cause I want the air in one spot[...]

I find it interesting that we have diametrically-opposed opinions based on exactly the same differentiation. You want all the buoyancy-providing air in one spot, so you use the drysuit for buoyancy adjustment. (That is not "wrong"; there are pros and cons of each option.)

The *last* thing *I* want is all my buoyancy-providing air in one spot. I deliberately split my buoyancy between the BC (wing) and drysuit in order to have a more stable equilibrium. It's almost as if I'm basically hanging from bubbles in my shoulders and feet, and the air in my BC at the beginning of the dive offsets the weight of the air I'll be breathing. Constraining part of my buoyancy to the span of the BC instead of my full body makes it *much* easier to right myself when I go head down to look at something near the beginning of the dive when my tanks are heaviest and the bubble the largest.

Ideally, I weight myself so that I can be stable with no air in my BC, a basically empty tank, and my normal insulating air. At the beginning of the dive, I share the load with the BC, as it happens to be right where the extra weight is, and there's no need to put that in the drysuit for warmth, as I'm already weighted to be ideally warm without it.


Regardless of anyone' chosen standard procedures, if the OP had split the air with his BC, the suit would have been less Hercules-looking, and the burping of the neck seal would either be diminished or eliminated. Latex neck seals tend toward burping when your drysuit is "overfilled". Neoprene neck seals tend to try to squeeze your head off at the neck (since they're turned inside).

 

[evil_xander]

Besides using the BC for buoyancy as its name states, nothing further of use I can add, but looks like your hood is also too big, punch a couple of holes on the top...

What might help is to deduce how buoyant is your current BC when empty, just add weight to it until it sinks to check out if something can be reduced in that department, like removing some padding or similar. Everything counts.

 

[Divingguy]

Reefwatcher: PLEASE either take a Drysuit certification class, or go with someone who is very experienced with Drysuits, so that they can help you with the learning curve, with weighting, with dumping, and most importantly, with not getting hurt. With that much air in your suit I would be terrified about two things: loss or failure of your weights, in which case you would breach the water like a missile; and an uncontrolled foot first ascent; both of which could have disastrous medical consequences depending upon dive depth. Still being "new" to drysuits, I use the "squeeze" technique, and only put in enough air to keep the trilam suit from squeezing me. Good luck, and be careful!!!

 

[divebri]

PerroneFord, I was diving with cavers in a recreational, single-tank setting. They weren't taking six tanks on the dives. I might have been wrong, but I do not recall them using the bc under water.

Clayjar, well put, and I understand your position. Yes, you should be 4-8 lbs negative at the start to compensate for the air in the tank, and whether it's in the drysuit or bc is OK as long as that's all there is. I prefer the drysuit because it's in one spot, and you HAVE to use the drysuit for air, at least a little. I find that 4-8 lbs in the drysuit is not much for me to manage, I don't have a problem with a bubble or going feet-up too much.

I understand the pros and cons of splitting air. I'm just not convinced it's the right thing to do, but if it works, well, I'm not the procedures nazi

I would strongly suggest the Op take a drysuit class as well. If that includes training in splitting the air, and she's proficient, fine. If it doesn't, that's fine too. But the overweighting fix will solve her original problem, that's for sure.