Struggling with weighing and dry suit venting

[Mountainmums]

Hi all!
Very baby diver here looking for some advice after a series of not so enjoyable dives this spring...
I apologize if the post is a bit long winded...
I started diving last summer in Finland (which is where I live), opting to take the course directly using a dry-suit. Course went pretty well, and we (my GF/dive buddy) then took a week long trip to Malta in October where I was able to get my AOW and enjoy 9 dives, all using the dry suit. During those 9 dives, I had no major buoyancy issues (ie, I wasn't perfectly neutral and hovering, but I experienced no sudden loss of buoyancy or loss of control).
Fast forward to this spring, after a winter away from the water. We tried to do things right, and went for a pool session first to get things dialed in, as I had acquired a nice and warm undersuit since the fall. Got the weighing sorted out in the pool easily, no issues. We then went to a lake to do a couple of dives to get experience in cold water (5° then) before attempting more demanding sea dives. Same weighing as in the pool, but I could not get down at all. Added a couple of kilos and went down. I however struggled the whole dive with keeping neutralish buoyancy, and fought hard the last part not to pop up. The second dive was even worse. I had to add even more weight to just get down, and could not keep down at all during the dive. We actually aborted the dive after 30' because I was struggling so much.
With my confidence having taken a major hit, I took the opportunity to take a scuba review course and discussed my weighing issues with the instructor. We took the time at the end of the session to figure things out, and took away 8 kilos from my weights, leaving me with 2 kilos only. We decided that going with 4 would be better because with 2 kilos I could stay down but not get down.
First boat dive day arrives. As I was still nervous about going down, I used 6 kilos for that dive. It was an awful dive that went south after 5 min when my buddy had a runaway ascent from 20 meters, but, I had not issues getting down, despite being seasick and stressed the whole time. So despite the awful dive, I thought I finally had the weighing thing sorted out.
Second boat dive day. First dive is an easy entry in sheltered water. But again I could not get down. The captain added 2 kilos to a pocket, and down I went. However, I was then really overweighed, felt very negative and had no way to maintain horizontal trim with all the weight in my BCD pulling my hips down. Then when we were going up the line during our ascent, I noticed that my dry suit was not venting automatically, causing me to be positively buoyant. The second dive went pretty much the same way, except my trim was a bit better because my second bottle is shorter and thus puts weight higher on my torso. Again, I could not get my DS to vent automatically and struggled with ascending slowly. I don't understand why, as I had absolutely no problem with the venting in Malta.
Anyway, if you've made it this far....what could explain the wide variations in weighing? And how can I get under control so that the amount of weight I need doesn't kill my trim? Could the addition of the undersuit explain the difficulty in venting? Is there anything I could about it???
Any advice or comment is welcome, I really want to get back to enjoying diving and not feeling like it is a never ending struggle....

 

[KevinNM]

You under suit (mid layer) will dramatically impact your weighting. Warm mid layers are very effective at trapping air, that's why they keep you warm. So you need to do the weight check with that mid layer. Which sucks a lot in an 80 degree pool.

There is also the swing from fresh to salt water. I dive nearly all the time in fresh water and could barely get under water when last I did an ocean dive and forgot to increase my weighting.

I keep the valve fully opened and I still have to actively vent my suit on ascent, by having my arm positioned so that the exhaust valve is the highest point on the suit. And I keep it there for most of the ascent, every so often I also dump some air from the BC. But I find the drysuit has a lot more potential for massive buoyancy than my wing, and the wing is easier to vent. At least until close to the surface, getting all the air of of the wing can be a bit of a pain.

 

[Mountainmums]

Thanks for the tips !!
I actually did all my weight checks wearing the exact same gear as I do in open water, including the undersuit (fortunately those were training pools rather than swimming pools, so the water temp was closer to 70 F) and all other paraphernalia such as lamp, hood, dry gloves, etc. .
I thought about the saltwater thing also, but I am not sure it could be an issue. First, the Baltic sea barely ahs any salt in it, and when I asked the local instructor, he told me that the weighing should not be affected by it. And also, I was able to get down with 6 kg on my first sea dive, but not on my second one..
Also what I meant by not venting is that even though my exhaust valve is fully open, and my arm is in the right position (I least I think it is, and at least once my sleeve was full of air that would not vent), the valve does not vent until I actively press on it - whereas it vented automatically in Malta if I kept it in the same position.

 

[Patoux01]

A few tips, with which people may or may not agree:
- Make sure your undersuit is not covering up the exhaust valve (I don't know about you, but when I'm purging manually, I usually twist the valve a bit, which would guarantee the valve is not covered). This can be solved by some arm bands, no idea if you need them, it depends a lot on the undergarment used.
- keep cool! Breathe out, long, slow, with everything purged. Don't breathe in again until you're ~1m underwater (if you're not getting down then, do remember to breathe in again ).
- Vent the suit properly before putting your gear on (with the kneel-down thingy you've learned)
- Go for an easy shore dive. Why? You won't get seasick there, no stress from making others wait (except the buddy/gf, but she'll keep you waiting when you're going to the restaurant, so it's only fair), ...
- Don't use the suit for buoyancy, in case you're doing that.

And if that doesn't work, I guess you could always try to find an experienced buddy to help you out, or grab one of the known instructors in your area for a day of training.

 

[Storker]

Which undersuit are you using? if it's a Weezle, they have a reputation for (partly) blocking the exhaust valve since they don't have that strategically placed mesh section on the left upper arm. OTOH, those who have them have a tendency to rave about how warm and comfortable they are, so there's that.

It sounds as if you have too much air in your suit when you try to submerge. To avoid that, I vent my suit twice before the dive. Once when I don it (the crouch down while sticking a finger under the neck seal routine) and then before submerging. Arm valve wide open, hanging low in the water with my feet down and the elbow high for a couple of minutes effectively pushes most of the remaining suit air out. With that routine I have to start adding air to the suit already at ~5m to avoid getting too shrink-wrapped.

Oh yeah, and what @Patoux01 said.

 

[Mountainmums]

Thanks for the tips guys !!

Undersuit: I will check if it is in fact obstructing the valve. It's a Santi undersuit, not a weezle, but I guess they might have similar issues. It is probably gonna be overkill as soon as water temps climb over 15°C, but I'm so prone to hypothermia in cold water that I'm happy to be overkill .

Venting before the dive: I've been doing that on land, but without using the finger in neck seal trick, will try that. Haven't taken the time to vent it fully once in the water, so will definitely give that a go also next time I get wet.

Breathing out to go down: I've been trying to do that calmly and serenely, but I've had mixed results. I most likely need to get more relaxed and more patient.

Easy shore dive: on the agenda and will hopefully help with the relaxed and patient. Not sure how fair it will end up being for the GF/dive buddy though: as we're both girls who knows who ends up waiting for whom when we're going out to eat ;-).

Using the suit for buoyancy: my biggest pet peeve right now. I used it for buoyancy in training and in Malta - since that's the way I was PADI trained. I had decided to switch to using my BCD for buoyancy this spring, but I've been struggling so much with the venting that I haven't been able to implement the switch.

Thanks again !!

 

[Neilwood]

I think what Storker describes with making sure all the air is out of the suit on the surface is a good idea. Put up with a slight squeeze on the surface with the suit pretty much air less and then inflate once you are descending to take the squeeze off.

A tip I was given by an instructor for submerging was to breathe in, kick up, and breathe out as your momentum carried you down. Get the timing right and you are already heading down when you breathe out so you are getting a twofold effect to help you get down.

 

[Mountainmums]

Thanks for the tip, I'll try the kick up and exhale trick too.
Now all I need is an opportunity to get wet !!

 

[FinnMom]

I can't see a Santi undersuit blocking the valve, not even the thicker ones. It's not salt water either, Finland's sea water is hardly brackish (Finland 0.7 % when normal seawater is about 3.0 %).

IMHO If you learned to use the suit for bouyancy and you are having some touble with weighting etc, don't try to force yourself to switch to bouyancy control (BC) with the BCD => you have enough to occupy you and you don't want to have a runaway ascent because you got preoccupied with the suit vent and forgot you also had air in the BCD. Lets work with what you know (BC with the suit) and take on only 1 new thing at a time. Right now the new thing is getting your weight correct.

Are you sure either the suit inflator or BCD inflator isn't leaking in air? They can sometimes do that very, very slowly & quietly. You only notice when you realize you are dumping air you know you never added.

You can balance out weight by using weight pockets instead of just a belt. Some BCDs also have weight pockets sized for 1 or 2 kg weights on their rear (tank) side, sometimes both high & low. You can also strap weight on the tank using for example, a weight belt.

 

[Mountainmums]

Update: some progress has been made with the weighing issues!!

We went out Thursday for a shore dive with the GF/buddy. Due to scheduling issues we only had a limited time-window for getting the dive done, and took a bit of a wild shot for the dive site... It turns out that 'deep water' (i.e., 5 meters ....) was much farther than expected, so it was a quite unusual dive with lots of time spent in very very shallow water (I have 9 minutes in less than 2 m....). The upside is that I got excellent practice at going down and staying down using breath control. In addition, visibility was less than ideal (about 1 m above 3.5m, something like 50 cm between 3 and 5 m), so we came up several times to get a visual on where we were. I was able to go down repeatedly without any issues using the original 6 kgs, which was my goal. I was definitely a lot more careful at making sure there as no air left in the suit before descending, and that definitely helped.

I wasn't able to work on the venting issues though, since at those depths I didn't need to add any air to the suit. I did add minimal air to the BCD, but will probably, as suggested by FinnMom, revert to using just the DS for buoyancy control until I figure out the DS venting issues. I should check if the BCD inflator is leaking air, as suggested. I don't think the DS one is, as I didn't get any air in it at all in the 90 min we spent in the water (there was a looooong walk in knee-thigh deep water before getting to 'swimable ' depth :-D).

My BCD has integrated weight pockets, so I keep 2 + 2 there, and 1+1 in trim pockets on the tank side pockets. I have also switched to a short and wide tank, which has, IMO helped a lot with the trim, as the weight is now kept off my hips (I'm really short).

So, I now have more confidence in knowing which weight is OK for me, although I haven't checked it yet with an empty tank. The next step will be doing a 'deeper' dive using the DS for buoyancy to keep task loading manageable and try to figure out how to get the suit to vent properly. It'll be in a while though as I probably won't get another chance to get wet before late July !!

Thanks to all for the tips !!!!