I got the BC in the mail yesterday. I used up a tank in the pool practicing maneuvering around and stuff. I love it. I have to say I think I got an amazing deal. It was 190, plus 35 for shipping, and it came with a sweet knife attached to the left side and a mares led light. Looks brand new. No leaks. I kind of wish it had small weight pouches in the back on the tank strap, but ultimately it can hold more than enough weight to get me down on an empty tank (not that I would want too) with a 7mm wetsuit.
Question. Would it work to wear a 2/3mm suit under a 7mm suit? Kind of a poor mans way to stay warm during the cold winter months? I'd hate to have cold water temps keep me out of diving for a couple months. No way I can afford a drysuit anytime soon.
Mastersniper,
I had someone pm me about your upcoming solo dive into a very cold, very low vis, and heavily fishing line entangling lake....on some sunken town.....while the dive could have an appeal to some as "frozen history" or a form of Indianna Jones adventure....this is the kind of dive that requires black water training, if not cave training as well, along with suitable exposure suit for the temperature, and sufficient gas in case of an entanglement.
As you are now asking about the wearing of 2 wet suits, the first issue that jumps out at me, is that you could be down at the bottom--perhaps you could get back to me with the max depth, but even if it is only 60 feet deep, if you find your self in a silt-out, with absolute zero vis, how to you expect to be able to control your buoyancy, knowing that the suit(s) will become exponentially more bouyant, as you rise higher in the water collum--potentially not even knowing you are rising( it is a black water liklihood). You need to be aware that this is a scenaro where you could become a "missle" headed fast to the surface...and even if you feel the ear pressure difference, and begin dumping, you could have a huge sea-saw up and down issue going on, with no real idea of your depth. In a high viz ocean environment, a diver with such a 2 wet suit combo as you are describing, could experience dramatic bouyancy shift with accidental accent which was not noticed by them--until they are really moving up fast---but they would have visual cues, while you would not.
This is not about how good your natural coordination and "natural diving skills" are...this gets to a part of diving that is not intuitive, and one that is very dangerous.
Classes today for Open Water students are so easy that almost ANYONE can be certified. The c-card you just got, pretty much means a diver with one, might survive in a swimming pool by themself for 30 minutes...it also is like a "learners permit", in that it lets you dive with experienced divers--who should help mentor you over time.
If you had gone through an extensive black water course for Public Safety Divers, or if you had gone through a real Cave Diving course, you would have been faced with blackout/zero viz conditions, and, you would have had to deal with entanglments and lift issues--but with an instructor there to help you if needed.
There are so many things that could happen on a dive in this lake, that a new diver could not possibly imagine. You are on a discussion board now with a huge number of very experienced divers....many of these once felt invulnerable, and much better than their diving peers. Almost without exception, you could hear stories froim each one of these exceptional divers, on how they almost bought the farm early in their diving, by believing they could do whatever they wanted. I certainly have plenty of these myself
Unfortunately, many divers that began this way, did end up dead....and that leaves the rest of us to attempt to persuade others not to be as stupid as the dead divers ( or us ) were. The reason cave diving is so rigorous, is because of the huge death rate caving used to have...silt-outs being a huge precursor to a sudden increase in new problems facing the diver, til they were overwhelmed and lost the ability to get out of their predicament.
You really need to be in a complete blackout, and tangled, with limited movement of your hands and body, to have any sense of what could happen, and how you would need to solve this....while training for this exists in Cave and Public Safety Diving, it does not exist for open water students.
Regards,
DanV
