Floaty Feet

[Brian Sharpe]

Up until yesterday I had thought of floaty feet as more-or-less one of the urban legends of diving. (I've usually been a little leg heavy)

At our local quarry yesterday I experienced it first hand and it was not pleasant, fortunately I had attentive & responsive buddies and the only injury was to my pride. I was a bit underweight near the end of the dive and ended up inverted and unable to get the bubble to move up to my shoulder valve without some help. Suffice it so say I felt like a total idiot! (Yeah, that was me "break dancing" on the wing of the airplane at Morrison's Quarry yesterday)

Any way, at the risk of suggesting an equipment solution to a training problem I noticed that Apollo (the folks who make the Bio-seal) build valves into the legs of their suits to mitigate the chance of this happening. Do any of you use something like this with your drysuits?

 

[mdb]

Hi Brian:

Here is a bit more information on our newest model drysuit:

www.apollosportsusa.com/Catalog/index.htm

The foot valves can be set to off or automatic. Divers choice. They have solved the
floating feet problem for many a diver.

 

[lowviz]

....Any way, at the risk of suggesting an equipment solution to a training problem ...........

Start by keeping your suit valve all the way open at all times while at depth. I use just enough gas in the suit to avoid a hard crush or getting too cold. I'm not at all opposed to leg weights for wreck diving. The risks greatly outweigh the minor benefit of looking like you really have your training tuned-in.

It wasn't until my advanced wreck class that an instructor taught me what I should have known from drysuit day one. He had me hold onto a training platform and REALLY invert until my tanks slid down, puffed my suit and showed me how to swim out of it while dumping. Takes a bit of practice, but it can be done. (something that is best performed under highly controlled conditions) Reminds me, haven't practiced that for quite a while now...

 

[elan]

There is nothing to be ashamed of , It's not until my 100th dive in the dry suit that I started feeling it completely and dumping it w/o changing my trim significantly. Have your valve open do not over inflate your suit and try to feel when the air starts taking more than it should and dump it. You suppose to dump it before it gets out of control.
Do not rush with installation of various valves. It's going to cost you.

Morrisson quarry is a nice place to practice dry suit techniques as it has the road coming up and you can have a reference and something to hold on to when you start coming up. You can get down , swim to the end of the right road , I believe it has a depth of 60' and then start coming slowly up, feel how air expands, when you feel it's expanded enough roll on your side and look if the valve dumps air. After some time you suppose to feel and hear how it dumps w/o looking. Later your will start feeling when the air would dump or not with given amount of air in the dry suit.