Question re. how much lift.

[happy-diver]

Dude don't leave yet

@tbone1004
If I'm weighted with the least possible amount of weight, and with an empty wing/BC, I can barely sink. It seems to me that at any later part of the dive I should be more positively buoyant at the surface. So, at least at the surface, I should need very little air to stay on the surface.

Here it is you've nailed it, all the rest is bologna

or you need no air if you do negative entries and no air if you can ascend directly to the ladder
or hover at a metre or two until it is free, mostly from the bobbers pulling themselves along a line
that don't know you are there

when you're weighed right, bulk air is for bobbing around on the surface
keeping your head above a rough sea

the surface apparently the most dangerous place in the ocean, that most of the ones that teach you to dive
and take you out on a boat insist you bob around on
forever

reg out mask off talking, steeling yourself for the dive, weren't you just on a boat
or taking your only means of propulsion off at the other end


and this instead of operating the shoulder dump

Shirley he didn't buy lenses especially for this

I've seen more dishevelement and panic on the surface (which really is much safer than the quiet ones)
than I will ever see underwater

They sure teach you a lot of stuff on those dive courses

Forever, lifting and bobbing

 

[AdivingBel]

@Kharon Where you going diving? Some place fun I hope. If it's warm water with little exposure protection you won't need much weight or lift. How far the bottom is won't matter for a guy like you that can control your position in the water column. Piece of cake. Have fun. Enjoy.

 

[JamesBon92007]

@tbone1004 Thanks for your answer. Sorry I didn't see previous discussions and didn't use the right search parameters to find them. I'll try again using cool_hardware52 as part of the search.

It now makes some sense to me. Though I'm still a bit puzzled. If I'm weighted with the least possible amount of weight, and with an empty wing/BC, I can barely sink. It seems to me that at any later part of the dive I should be more positively buoyant at the surface. So, at least at the surface, I should need very little air to stay on the surface.

Sorry if I'm being dense. I dive almost entirely from shore so this isn't something that's been an issue for me. It's also never been a problem diving from boats - so far. But I've got a trip coming up where I will be diving with no bottom in sight so I figured it's better know than to assume.

For shore diving in California I never used to use a BC and wore an old Rubitex wet suit that didn't compress much at depth, but the maximum depth was usually only about 40-45 feet. I never worried about perfect neutral buoyancy and weighted myself so I'd be nearly neutral at the end of the dive, but with just enough negativity to stay below the waves on the trip back to shore. Now my only shore diving in California (at least lately--getting too old to climb the bluffs) has been the Catalina Dive Park and I wear a small, 18# wing which suits me just fine. I only use it at the beginning of the dive and it doesn't take much air to make me neutral. I figure I rarely need more than about 8 pounds of lift plus I have about another 5 in my lungs if/when needed. I've recently acquired a 5mm super-stretch suit but even so I'm not diving very deep at the park. I still have about 10 pounds more lift left in the small wing which I think should be more that adequate compared to my experiences with my 2.5mm suit but I've yet to go very deep in it. With "no bottom in sight" I'd be tempted to used a slightly bigger wing, at least at first. I would hate to ever have to dump any lead and then be too positive to hold a safety stop.