Is it better to be tall or short in scuba diving?

[uncfnp]

The advantage is generally in being female

As for short/tall, I fall in the short range. My biggest gripe is al 80’s hitting the back of knees or head. That’s why I love the shorter tanks. And trying to gear up on dive boats. The tank with bcd is often too tall for me to sit comfortably while in the gear.

 

[rhwestfall]

Neither the wife (5'-2") or me (6'-7") are thrilled with the equipment options in scuba.....

(yeah, we rarely dance...)

 

[Scott G. Bonser]

Yeah, I know ‘Bob’. He is a tall dude. I am the one that couldn’t fit into the regular wetsuit.….

 

[Kimela]

Taller people look better in underwater pictures - that nice, elongated silhouette. I’m 5’1” and look like someone strapped a tank on Winnie the Pooh!! The fins don’t help as much as I’d hoped!!

 

[ps444mike]

Im tall 6'3 and as others have said it kind of sucks.. dry suits are $$ to have made to size think my air consumption is higher just need more air to fuel this body does kind of help im stronger so bigger tanks

 

[lexvil]

Taller people look better in underwater pictures - that nice, elongated silhouette. I’m 5’1” and look like someone strapped a tank on Winnie the Pooh!! The fins don’t help as much as I’d hoped!!

I doubt anyone will be swooning over my underwear picture, sometime dark is all we need.

 

[loosenit2]

It is not something you can control so don't worry about it. Worry about the things that you CAN contrrol.

 

[boulderjohn]

because it gives me more leverage and longer limbs to propel on water

For the overwhelming majority of my dives, my ability to propel myself through the water with power such that leverage would make a difference is completely unimportant. I am rarely in currents or other situations where such power is critical. Mostly I am swimming along leisurely, looking at the stuff I entered the water to see.

 

[NothingClever]

The fact that scores of women (typically smaller in nature) can outdive scores of men upsets efforts to reach a conclusion. I think it’s all in how efficient we are with movement and our cardiopulmonary efficiency.

 

[boulderjohn]

Two years ago I was on a wreck dive in South Florida, where the custom is for the DM to jump in the water and take a mooring line down to the wreck, where it is tied off. There is a ball on the surface, with a line from it to the boat. On this dive, the DM was a TINY woman, not much more than 5-0, if that. When she was done setting the line, she warned us that there was a ripping current.

All of the divers were highly experienced, and many were tech divers with rebreathers or double tanks. The first diver down the line was a rebreather diver, followed by two tech divers with doubles, then I was there, diving a single tank that day. Going down the line into the current was simply brutal. We swam hard into the current and pulled on the line as we went. The rebreather diver in the lead paused twice to rest. The two doubles divers quit and went back to the boat. When I got to the tie-off on the wreck, I was exhausted. I hung on for a while to rest. I later learned that half the divers quit the dive on the way down.

When the dive was over, that TINY DM hopped into the water, went down, and untied the line. No problem.