Hello!

[lisaperrecone]

My name is Lisa and I live in San Diego...Nice to meet you all. I have been diving for 30 years but have long spans between dives so...I just found this cool website as I was searching for an answer to a dive question. Since I don't dive very often I can never remember how much weight to put on my belt. Does anyone know of a formula for determining this?
Thanks for any help...happy diving!
Lisa

 

[Tomikp]

Hello Lisa, wear all the dive gear and then go to water. Your tank should be full. Breathe out and you should start slow descending. Your BCD must be fully empty. It is better to make this test from a shore than from a boat. Try this in shallow water, when the tank is almost empty (50 bar), you should stay in 3 m without problems. Dose weights carefuly.

 

[dwaters]

Welcome to the 'board!!!

Yup, ton of good information here... use the search top right and it will help find topics and drop on down to the forum that covers your question area. Here is one I found right away that may help you.
I got a formula from my OW instructor years ago and it seems to work for me.

Start with 5% of your body weight for salt water or 4% of your body weight for fresh water.

Add 1lb. of weight for every milimeter of thermal protection

Add 4lbs. for an aluminum 80 tank.
for other tanks, adjust according to their empty positive or negative buoyancy

With this formula a 200 lb. diver in salt water using a 5 mil wet suit and an aluminum 80 tank would wear 19 lbs. of weight. Author "dr.Nil"

And speaking of dropping down, feel free to drop on down to your local forum and join in the fun here: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/socal/ And if you want to get any local dives
done, we'll help you get wet. Might be good to take a refresher class too.
Hope to see you in the water someday soon!

 

[Fossilbabe]

Just wanted to say hello Lisa and welcome to scuba board. Have a wonderful weekend.

 

[Captain Walt]

Welcome to the board Lisa.

 

[floridanewbe]

Hi Lisa welcome aboard