My wife won't sink

[$cubach!ck]

I'm female and the same size and in a 7mm in fresh water I use 18 lbs. I hate the cold so I suck it up and add the weight. Warm water diving in a 2mm in salt and I get down with 10.

 

[VikingDives]

I'm pretty sure she's not a witch. But she has struggled with getting underwater since the beginning. She's a 5'8" runner, about 130+/- pounds, fit, with little fat.

In a 7mm full suit, in fresh water she wears 14 pounds of lead and still struggles getting down that first ten feet underwater. She has worked on buoyancy, I've worked with her on it, we had buoyancy as one of our AOW specialties and spent an entire day working on it, she has continued to work with an instructor with it but still struggles. I on the other hand am 30 pounds overweight and submerge fine in a 5mm with 8# of lead. We'll put more on her because she is getting frustrated but I can't imagine she really needs it. All her instructors believe she has sufficient weight (or too much) and suggest she needs to relax and something about her stance is causing her to have a hard time getting down. Next time we go diving I'm going to see how much lead is required just to sink her wetsuit. Any tips on sinking a buoyant diver without overloading lead?

Hey Chris,

Let's get together on a weekend where I have some pool time and we can get it sorted. I won't charge you. Sorry I missed you this weekend!

Bill

 

[landphil]

Cold water with a steel tank, swimming down to 10-15 ft is fine- as long as you're negative and need a couple of puffs of air in your BC to get neutral as you descend (Aluminum tank in cold water, you're going to need something to hold onto to stay at 15 ft for your safety stop if you had to swim down to start the dive.) I use the bounce yourself down method (it probably has a real name, though ) to start descending head up when I'm wetsuit diving. You empty out your BC on the surface (with your reg. in, of course), take a deep breath to start you floating high in the water and kick up a little, then rapidly exhale and start sculling down with your arms. It easily gets you down to where everything starts compressing. It also lets you feel how your breathing affects your buoyancy as you inflate and deflate your lungs to help accelerate your descent.

 

[happy-diver]

My wife won't sink​

I'm pretty sure she's not a witch.

Any tips on sinking a buoyant diver without overloading lead?

With some of the attitude shown towards husbands and men over time
I would have thought the answer was rocks, and hessian bags and rope

or more lead

but you already knew that


Where some people carry twice as much weight as others, are twice the size they need it and
can carry it that is what they need and it will not take you to the bottom of the ocean forever

 

[rduquesnoy]

Back in the days when I had a 7mm suit (+ second layer (shorty) around the torso) I needed +/- 20 pounds of lead. Might have been able to pull it off with 18 eventually when the suit started to wear out. 14 pounds sounds like it's too little.

Never had to kick to go down (to be honest, I think that splashing around like crazy at the surface to go down looks a bit silly ). I just had to deflate the BCD, exhale and then slowly descend.

 

[FreqFlier]

butt dump the easiest way to get the air out of my BC, descent or ascent

Yup, butt or shoulder dump. Makes sure no air left in BCD

 

[KenE]

I would like to add a small addition to what has already been said. I am large and very buoyant and wear a 7mm wetsuit. Descending was an issue at first, what I came to understand is that the key is to start the descent, then wait. I found that if I was patient, it was less stressful and much easier to evacuate the lungs. Once I started to move it did not take much thought because the suit started to compress and the descent picked up pace rapidly. Yes, my buddies were a couple feet below me, but no worry, I caught up fairly quickly. An athletic female will have large lung capacity relative to size and weight, evacuating this can be difficult when most instincts tell us to take a large breath when descending. She will need to understand this natural reaction and learn to overcome it. She will learn that there is more air that she can evacuate if she tries, just until she starts moving and then physics takes over. Less stress at time of descent will also help overcome the instinct to hold air in the lungs. So, I suggest you work on a routine that will reduce stress and make descent enjoyable instead of troublesome. Reg in mouth, evac BCD, evac lungs until the eyes drop below water level, look down at buddy, then when you look up again you are several feet underwater and all is good! Keep diving as this is the only way to improve!

 

[wlecyt40]

iam 6.2 230 pound full 7 mm boot, hodd etc. I currently use 12 pound, went down with 10 last dive.

Her problem is with breathing control. Must likely she inhale and exale continuously when going down. with her size i will say she doesn't need more than 10-12 max.

So it s not s weight problem but. breathing problem. She need to focus to exaaaaaaaale !

Be safe

She is air trapping. My wife used to air trap when she first started diving because she was nervous. Once she learned that she was air trapping, she uses very little lead ( apprx 8#) to descend. That is with a 5mm. She rarely wears 5mm. Most of the time, she wears SharkSkin and uses about 6# to off set the buoyancy that comes from the cylinder getting low.

Breathe from the diaphragm and fully exhale. I consciously watch how I breathe, even on land. I say that cuz "I is an air hawg!" And I laugh about it. But I also learned to breathe from the diaphragm during DM class. It has made a world of difference in my air supply and my buoyancy. I used 18# with a brand new 8/7mm semi dry in cold f**king water. In warm, I use 6# to descend with rash guards.

 

[tridacna]

Does she weigh the same as a duck?

 

[CycleCat]

Does she weigh the same as a duck?

A 130-pound duck... yes.