If I threw you into the Sea of Cortez in your swimsuit and handed you 12 lbs of ballast how long could you tread water?
Tobin
Well I've never been in the Sea of Cortez, but with a snorkel, so I didn't have to hold my 15lb of ugly fat out of the water to breath, I think I could tread water a long time holding 12 lb. I have to swim down like crazy to freedive in saltwater without any wetsuit. Think it might be the air in my head? Or is it some Zen thing that lets me overcome simple physics?
I just went over to a free diving forum and it appears there is a wide range of opinions there. Difference is everybody agrees that if they are going deep they can use less weight (lung compression). Of course they don't do safety stops. Kind of crazy to hear about people wearing 12-17lb for shallow freediving. Then there are the people who can do it with no weight at all and think everybody should.
Like I said before, I'm jealous, but I still need 14-16lb in my Lavacore. And I still believe lead is warmth in a drysuit.
---------- Post added April 27th, 2015 at 10:57 PM ----------
FWIW, I did a session in the pool the other night with a 6lb plate in a 3/2 full suit and an AL80. I was over weighted. Hared pressed to see where I should need more than a copuple of pounds at most in salt with the same config.
Let me see....if that was me...210lb for me plus 6 lb for the backplate, 4 lb for the suit, 42 lb for the AL80 with air and valve, 2 lb for the reg, 4 lb for the fins would give me a total weight of 268. Add 2.5% of the weight of the fresh water I am displacing to replace it with an equivelent volume of salt water would be 6.7lb. You were heavy with the AL80 but you probably didn't breath it empty in the pool either. I think by the end of a dive in saltwater you may need more than a couple extra pounds.