I can't descend!

[weight_for_me]

Sharkman..I too am a novice.....185lbs, AL80, 7mil Farmer John. Now, with 24 dives in the log book, I am now down to 22 lbs (integrated) from 28lbs. Practice, proper breathing and experience will eventually let you lose some weight. In the meantime, don't worry about it too much.....just have fun.

 

[the sharkman]

I realize that newer divers will use much more weight than as they experience, but whY? A friend told me that they learned to totally exhale before descending, and this helped. I think I am just going to use my 30 lbs, and just forget about it. I'm telling you that my bc is totally empty, and I still need 30 lbs to descend, and I have no natural bouyancy. Oh well, I would rather dive with too much wieght, than not dive at all.

 

[david.tolan]

For my money, I'd rather have too much weight than too little.

If I personally need 30lbs to stay neutral with an empty tank, then I may need some work on skills, but until I find myself putting in air at the 5 meter stop, I doubt that I can remove any weight.

I was on a dive where I was underweighted, the instructor "assisted" me under :upset:. Later at about 5 meters on the ascent I found myself quite bouyant and suddenly on the surface.
Fortunately the dive was neither long nor deep.

I have little intention of diving with this instructor again.

With a 7mil 2 peice wet suit that you will need a lot of weight to get down (though some need a smaller lot) and once you are deep it compresses, so you need quite a bit of air in your BC.

Diving in a 3mil shorty in the red sea is a whole lot easier.

 

[landlocked]

WreckWriter once bubbled...
In my 10 years of teaching I found that almost all divers are overweighted. It is, mostly, the fault of the system in that many instructors don't take the time (or don't have the time) to teach proper body positioning.

Yup. I was overweighted and I had spent a lot of time messing with it! I had an interesting experience last weekend. We were diving in Blue Lake near Wendover Nevada. My buddy was diving in a rented two piece 7 mil and was struggling to stay under at 25 feet. So, I handed her 4 lbs off of my belt. Although I was concerned with the safety stop, I had no problems. I never put the weight back in the belt. My trim seems to have improved a fairbit. (By the way, the reason I dive a 7mil semi dry one piece is I started adding up what it would take to sink one of those 2 piece 7 mils after it got wrapped around me! Like how do you get to the water!)