Redundant buoyancy in warm weather

[Kevrumbo]

Yes - and a little dab of the Tide full strength every other day. Just keep thinking to find all the reasons that drysuits are no good in warm water; too hot, too buoyant, too much gear, too stinky, blah, blah, blah...

They are not for everyone and they are not for you - just leave it at that.

A short objective recap once again seen first hand: Two Warm Water Drysuit Disadvantages

If you're gonna dive Helium mixes in the tropics with a drysuit, then you gotta bring your own suit air inflation bottle & reg kit (unless the dive-ops can supply a small 6cuft cylinder for rent).

Too much maintenance if you rip a seal or puncture a hole --it's easier to use a "holed" wetsuit in 30deg C water as is, versus using a leaking drysuit resulting in two "leg fulls" of water causing further hydrodynamic drag & excess weight.

 

[tajkd]

A short objective recap once again seen first hand: Two Warm Water Drysuit Disadvantages

If you're gonna dive Helium mixes in the tropics with a drysuit, then you gotta bring your own suit air inflation bottle & reg kit (unless the dive-ops can supply a small 6cuft cylinder for rent).

Too much maintenance if you rip a seal or puncture a hole --it's easier to use a "holed" wetsuit in 30deg C water as is, versus using a leaking drysuit resulting in two "leg fulls" of water causing further hydrodynamic drag & excess weight.

OK for the helium bottle but...

They do make zip seals.

and the occurrence of a ripped seal or hole is not frequent. It does happen (has happened to me). I carry seal repair and can stop up a small hole during a surface interval. If a seal rips and you have no spare, you are in trouble. The risk IME does not balance the reward I get by keeping warm. Again, perhaps other individuals may choose differently.

 

[The Chairman]

So Kev has waxed on and on (and on and on) about how much he hates dry suits, yet he has not told us what he uses for redundant buoyancy. Actually, he might have, but it would have been buried in his dry suit bashing invective. So, trying to get him to get on topic, what redundancy do you use, Kev?

 

[PfcAJ]

He's got a good supply of hot air. I'm sure he can use some of that for redundant buoyancy.

 

[RJP]

A short objective recap once again seen first hand: Two Warm Water Drysuit Disadvantages

If you're gonna dive Helium mixes in the tropics with a drysuit, then you gotta bring your own suit air inflation bottle & reg kit (unless the dive-ops can supply a small 6cuft cylinder for rent).

Too much maintenance if you rip a seal or puncture a hole --it's easier to use a "holed" wetsuit in 30deg C water as is, versus using a leaking drysuit resulting in two "leg fulls" of water causing further hydrodynamic drag & excess weight.

Fair points, as I've referenced above. That said, I'll run a drysuit hose off my deco bottle vs bringing a separate inflation bottle in those cases.

Field repair is pretty easy - zip seals and a tube of aquaseal pack easily enough. I've done extensive, tight penetration in my 30/30 and TLS-350 - hundreds of dives in lower engine rooms and crew quarters, and cargo holds, and ventilation shafts, and collapsed areas in Truk, Red Sea, and here in NJ - and in all that time the only issues I ever had were a pin-hole that was repaired after the last dive of the day with a dab of aquaseal and ready the next morning, and a torn neck seal on my last of 21 dive days in Truk. I could have trimmed and worn that, but instead... I actually wore a wetsuit!

The only known photo of me in a wetsuit.

 

[Kevrumbo]

He's got a good supply of hot air. I'm sure he can use some of that for redundant buoyancy.

Well I sure don't have the chum-bucket brain stew that you troll with all the tine PfcAJ. . .

Seven years of "hot air" practical experience diving these Truk Wrecks (and four multi-week return visits just in the past year); as well as tech wreck trips to the Sunda Strait, South China Sea, Sri Lanka, Philippines and last June/July to Bikini Atoll --only the GUE divers who chose to wear drysuits had chronic leakage problems.

Fair points, as I've referenced above. That said, I'll run a drysuit hose off my deco bottle vs bringing a separate inflation bottle in those cases.

Field repair is pretty easy - zip seals and a tube of aquaseal pack easily enough. I've done extensive, tight penetration in my 30/30 and TLS-350 - hundreds of dives in lower engine rooms and crew quarters, and cargo holds, and ventilation shafts, and collapsed areas in Truk, Red Sea, and here in NJ - and in all that time the only issues I ever had were a pin-hole that was repaired after the last dive of the day with a dab of aquaseal and ready the next morning, and a torn neck seal on my last of 21 dive days in Truk. I could have trimmed and worn that, but instead... I actually wore a wetsuit!

The only known photo of me in a wetsuit.

Very Well! I hope these GUE drysuit divers had the foresight to bring a back-up wetsuit as well (they sure didn't use zip seals). . .

 

[danvolker]

There are good doctors and bad doctors, good lawyers and bad lawyers....and smart GUE's and not so smart GUE's.....
Standardization in Cave is all well and good...I'm all for it....Relentlessly hanging on to gear that is optimal in cave, but handicapping in the spectacular diving of the tropics, is just stupid.
Sometimes you and your buddies have to think for yourselves!

Related point...You fly half way around the world to dive some of the most amazing coral reefs on the planet, some with amazing wrecks....the life is the amazing part, NOT the inside of wrecks that were picked clean 50 years ago. I am going to suggest wasting time penetrating into the no-life or low-life area inside a wreck, while on-top of some of the most amazing life on the planet...is stupid. Hopefully I don't get banned for saying this, but I think it would be a dis-service to state this any other way.....

And of course.....this ties in to the more practical manner of diving with wet suits in this type of tropical marine environment.

 

[Adventure-Ocean]

I was lucky to dive 40 years in warm climate and warm water. I also worked twenty years as a marine tech while there. The first ten years I dove using a steel 72 with no belt or bcd. At the time it didn't seem too difficult but after graduatiing to full gear and full wetsuit I learned how much effort I'd been giving to go and be where I wanted. The only challenge for bouyancy I had was how much weight for whatever wetsuit I'd be using. Once I got the weight right I never had a problem. We always used aluminum 80's. It's nice to dive a lot. It didn't take long to get my gear perfect for me. My test was to sit in the lotus position well off the bottom and take in and exale just the right amount to not move at all. Comletely deflate my lungs and I'd start to sink, or take a large breath and I would rise. It was one of the cool aspects of diving. Like I might imagine space.

Since the weather is tropical, which ever wetsuit I'd wear would be removed completely in between dives. We took some students out with drysuits to gather data at a sewage outfall and they hated it. Very hot and confining in the water and sweat to die on the surface. A lot of people I worked with used just the light skins. Though I never used those I could see they worked pretty nice.

With all the new ways of weighting us down I always kept to the weight belt. New students on occasions had bouyancy problems when they first arrived on the island but that was generally because their bouyancy had to be adjusted from where they were diving. Again, it didn't take long when you dive daily. Many times we watched divers kicking their fins in the air trying to get down. We always kept a stash of weights onboard.
Though I do not have experience in cold ocean or lake diving, I'm sure my personal bouyancy would have to be re-calculated in each new environment. It's a good topic. Everyone has to address the issue in their own way. Adventure-Ocean

 

[Kevrumbo]

There are good doctors and bad doctors, good lawyers and bad lawyers....and smart GUE's and not so smart GUE's.....
Standardization in Cave is all well and good...I'm all for it....Relentlessly hanging on to gear that is optimal in cave, but handicapping in the spectacular diving of the tropics, is just stupid.
Sometimes you and your buddies have to think for yourselves!.

These GUE Russian divers I dove with here in Truk were right on squared away: despite the language barrier, we had no problems communicating with standard cave hand signals underwater. Btw a correction: Two had modified 30/30 DUI Tropicals, and one a TLS drysuit, all with a tough duck overlay and turbo sole boots. The only one who ripped a seal was the JJ CCR diver with the TLS who was doing most of the deep & tight traverses inside the ships (engine room). The others stayed on the outside or did the easy wide open traverses through the cargo holds & superstructures.

Related point...You fly half way around the world to dive some of the most amazing coral reefs on the planet, some with amazing wrecks....the life is the amazing part, NOT the inside of wrecks that were picked clean 50 years ago. I am going to suggest wasting time penetrating into the no-life or low-life area inside a wreck, while on-top of some of the most amazing life on the planet...is stupid. Hopefully I don't get banned for saying this, but I think it would be a dis-service to state this any other way......

And of course.....this ties in to the more practical manner of diving with wet suits in this type of tropical marine environment.

Dan, the allure of wreck diving is researching the history of the ship, and then actually diving on it and imagining how it all literally went down (especially if it was a WWII warship or cargo ship sunk in action). Going inside is like viewing a 70 year-old time capsule (or in the case of the San Francisco Maru's cargo hold full of unexploded ordnance, literally a time bomb!). A lot of stuff can still be seen: pots & pans, utensils in the kitchen/galley; old electronics tubes & panels in the radio room; bridge helm & engine telegraphs; triple expansion steam propulsion cylinders in the engine room; bulldozers, trucks, Zero Fighters & tanks in the cargo holds; terrific and terrible bomb & torpedo damage from the US Navy attack planes which sunk these ships; and a gas mask with a set of human remains surrounding it where a crewman stayed at his damage control duty station to the very end. . .
.
With 70 years of beautiful invertibrate soft & hard coral growth on these "artificial reefs", I keep coming back to celebrate the wonderful marine life to see on the outside of the Truk Lagoon Wrecks-- but also to solemnly honor & remember the sacrifice of the merchant seamen, soldiiers, sailors & aviators who died here (Japanese & US and Chuukese civilians as well). I find that more compelling, interesting and more personally worthwhile than "pushing the mainline" in some Florida/Mexico cave system. . . . .

 

[PfcAJ]

I'm no wreck diver, but this is something I can get down with. A perspective on diving that I can certainly respect.