How to (politely) advocate for more weight?

[Diver With Altitude]

Me: Female, 5'10", 170lbs (36 if age matters). Technically on paper, on the high end of "normal" BMI. In reality, I'm a little overweight.

Plugging your data into the calculator on the scuba otter website, it comes up with 14 lb for saltwater in a 3 mm full suit. I have found that their calculator underestimates my lead requirement by about 2 lb (for cold water), so you may be exactly right about how much you need.

 

[ScuberDuber]

Bring your own weights!

 

[tursiops]

Bring your own weights!

Easy to say for someone who probably drives somewhere to dive.

 

[Marie13]

Easy to say for someone who probably drives somewhere to dive.

I’m not a tropical vacation diver and I even know better than to suggest someone bring their own weights as a blanket suggestion.

 

[RyanT]

@boulderjohn and a couple of other folks have given some good advice here. I'd agree, that what you say you are needing sounds a little high, but definitely not ridiculous. I'm a fairly muscle-dense male and I wear 10 lbs of lead with a 5 mm shorty and AL80. I can maintain a safety stop in that rig with 8lbs, at 300 psi, but that's a 15' with every last bit of air squeezed out of my wing and trying not to take too deep of a breath.

You seem to be saying that you could not submerge, but once you were down and doing the dive, you were fine. Most importantly, were you fine all the way through the dive, including a safety stop? If so, then you had enough weight.

Here's something to think about. My buddy is a competent tech diver and her standard rig is a set of steel doubles and a deco bottle. She is amazing underwater, but she has this weird thing about the surface, it just freaks her out. When she steps off the boat, she takes a huge breath and tends to hold part of it. Sometimes when she thinks she's exhaling fully, she's not. I've seen her have to work to kick down wearing full steel doubles and a fully deflated wing. She's got big lungs and it's just her unconscious thing. @columbus jones, This may or may not be a contributing factor, but might be something to look for.

I'm sure I sound like an idiot to y'all but you aren't treating me like one, and I appreciate it.

Not at all, it takes time and experience to get dialed in as a diver. Enjoy the ride!

 

[Wibble]

Deflating vertically through the elephant's trunk helps a lot.

 

[lowwall]

I could not submerge with 14lbs. The DM pulled me down, attempted to ensure I didn't have trapped air by checking my deflator and pulling on my BCD dump valves, and then added 4lbs to my kit (2lbs in each trim pocket).

If you don't want to go through the hassle of arguing (and your baggage allowance allows), you could travel with a pair of two pounders in your trim pockets. The DM doesn't need to know they are there.

 

[dflaher]

Wondering, if the issue is mainly during descent, if the OP has trouble equalizing. That could cause a novice diver to not fully relax and thus hold their breath.

 

[Altamira]

Plugging your data into the calculator on the scuba otter website, it comes up with 14 lb for saltwater in a 3 mm full suit. I have found that their calculator underestimates my lead requirement by about 2 lb (for cold water), so you may be exactly right about how much you need.

I have found the scuba otter website to be way off of my lead requirement for a 3mm full wetsuit, AL80, in salt water. Even with a higher body fat category, this website underestimates my actual weight requirements.

 

[rjgiddings]

Kelemvor beat me too it - but yeah - just get your own weights.
And get away from an aluminum tank as fast as possible if you haven't already.
Don't even rent aluminum - unless say, you're in the tropics - and that's all they have.

And looking at your no of dives - I'll say fear floats - and by the time you get about 20-30 more dives in your log you will very likely have settled down and will drop maybe 2 lbs. weight. Ask me how I know this. LOL.