keep calm

[daniel f aleman]

Wow, a lot in that event. Have you decided how you are going to weight yourself in the future?

 

[RiverRat]

Good job getting straightened out, working through it and ending the dive well. One thought did cross my mind though. What kind of backplate do you have? Aluminum? If you've got 30# on a belt you'd be better served with a steel plate to shed some of that lead. You're off to a great start practicing skills and all, but as you've learned having a ton of ditchable weight can be a bad thing. Had you been on a deep dive, or just a more challenging dive for that matter, well things may not have been pretty. Not to say that blasting to the surface from a shallow dive can't kill you either. Good job, but now you should start to think more about weight distribution, trim etc. and getting rid of the heavy weightbelt.

 

[GottaDive]

there's no way I'll get that air outta my BC unless I improve my positioning". :

Could you be wearing too much weight? I know everyone is different, but at 40ft, I don't have much air in my BC at all. Just a pop every once in a while to maintain neutral. If you have a significant amount of air in your BC at 40ft, you could be over-weighted.

Just my 2 psi.

Glad you worked everything out.

Steve

 

[laivindil]

D_O_H: You practice it so if you ever have to you have experience and don't make an emergency worse. Say your BC rips, or (more likely) the dump on the inflator sticks open. All the air in the world won't do you any good; gotta ditch the weights. An example that comes to mind was a 15 y-o kid who was diving below a snorkler. His inflator started dumping air and he didn't know to ditch his weights. The snorkler had to freedive and pull them off the kid.

RiverRat and GottaDive: I know I'm wearing too much weight. I've only been out once with the BP/W so I'm still working on it. I dive a 6lb SS plate and a 4lb STA. I used to use 40lbs with a jacket. Wearing 7mm wetsuit doesn't help.

 

[GottaDive]

I know I'm wearing too much weight. I've only been out once with the BP/W so I'm still working on it. QUOTE]

Sounds like you know where you are and where you need to be.

Keep it up. Every dive helps!

Good luck.

Steve

 

[mongoose]

As far as holding the WB out to the side, many instructors I know will have the student remove the belt using the through-the-legs approach, and keep the belt clutched to the chest, then replace via through-the-legs.

--'Goose

 

[laivindil]

As far as holding the WB out to the side, many instructors I know will have the student remove the belt using the through-the-legs approach, and keep the belt clutched to the chest, then replace via through-the-legs.

--'Goose

I learned to use the kneeling-on-the-bottom-slide-the-belt-to-your-knees-then-replace method a year ago.

I learned last week why it's done that way.