Floating away

[cowprintrabbit]

That puts me at 20lbs, and I feel overweighted at 9lbs (tropical waters), my butt sinks. I am new at all this, am I doing something wrong? I am 5'7" 140 lbs.

 

[jbd]

and go to the real thing. Go to the pool or some other shallow calm water area with all your gear. Take a weight belt that has several weights on it. The weights on should be 2lbs the last couple can be 4 lbs. Have the weights spaced about 4 inches apart. Lay this weight belt on the bottom at around 5 to 6 feet deep. Don all the rest of your gear, get in the water and make sure your BC is completely empty. Now dive down to the weight belt and grab ahold of the belt close to the last 4 lb weight you put on. Hold this end of the belt real close to your body and then TOTALLY RELAX. You will begin to float to the surface until you have lifted enough weight to stop you from going up any more. At this point you are now neutrally bouyant i.e. neither sinking nor rising. Add up the weights you have raised and you know what weight you need for freshwater based on the laws of physics instead of some equation that may or may not be right for you.

PLEASE NOTE. For this exercise the second stage will NOT be in your mouth. You will be holding a half breath as Uncle Pug talked about earlier in this thread.

There are similar versions of this technique that enable you to stay at the surface and work out the weight you need.

 

[jbd]

I agree that a diver will not conserve air by orally inflating their BC while UW. I do think its a mistake to never ever inflate your BC orally while UW though. Like everything else in diving repetitive practice makes for perfect responses when the fecal material hits the fan. I will agree that the power inflator is easier and most likely the preferred method.

The reason not to orally inflate is because you'll have more control in how much air you add to your BC with the power inflator. It is a misconception that you can conserve air by adding air orally. In fact several BC 's now have eliminated the typical inflator hose for a "power" only method -they do have small tube to orally inflate, if the power mech. fails. You can add small "bursts" of air to your BC much easier than by using your oral inflator. Also by using your oral inflator you will invariably interupt a normal breathing pattern. On a side note you can also plan on having to flush the salt water out of your BC when you orally inflate. Please feel free to use your oral inflator, there's just not a good reason to unless of course if your inflator mech. has failed, or you need to inflate your BC on the surface and for some reason you don't have any gas left in your tank-but thats another story

 

[Winton]

Hpt3,
I heard a couple of things here that make sense to me, firstly, If your always sinking your probably wearing too much weight, start with a weight/buyoancy check. Then, dont be afraid to put air in your BCD, to be honest when you are weighted correctly, you should have to swim down, then your wetsuit will collapse and you will begin to sink; when you get to your planned depth, kick enough air into your BC to make yourself positively buyoant, then immediately let enough out so that you stop floating up. Use your breathing to make relatively minor changes in depth and as your cylinder empties and/or you work up into shallower areas you will probably have to let air out of your BCD, you should probably end the dive with little or nothing left in your BCD, idealy. Then, add air for any ah... surface swim.