Surprise Surprise . . Newbie has a mishap . . .

[jkaterenchuk]

I would caution you to take everything you read on SB with a grain of salt and try stuff out for yourself.....remember anyone can be an expert behind a keyboard.

For example...one poster suggested you buy Jet Fins. If you did so you might find that your already fatigued calf muscles cramp up more frequently since the design of Jet Fins place much more stress on your calf muscles by their design.

Since your diving in quarry's you have a unique opportunity to take advantage of the shallow end of the quarry and spend hours doing and tweaking some things without having to worry about gas volumes or decompression issues. Taking time to do some of these things will pay huge dividends in your future diving ins so many ways.

1) Find a experienced buddy or hire a good instructor to spend a day with you going thru the peak performance bouyancy skills....focus on getting your trim and weighting spot on. This will take several hours if done correctly. But once done you will find diving much more pleasurable and you will use much less air. This is not a simple as adding or taking away a lb of two of lead. Once you get what you feel is the right amount located correctly then you need to become familiar with the more controlled and slower descent and lung volume control you now have available versus using you BCD inflator.
2) Spend the better part of a day swimming with your buddy in the shallow end doing nothing more than equipment familiarization. Write down all the specific things you could need to do with your equipment. Then practise them in several different positions and at several stages in a dive. With the small number of dives you have to date you will not have gotten in tune with your equipment. The faster you get everything committed to muscle memory the better you will be and the more you will be able to sense issue in advance of them happening because you know it does not feel normal.

These two things are not considered fun dives and most new divers find them boring but doing both of them will put you at least 50 dives ahead in the learning curve then those that just jump in to go see the front end loader at 40 ft in the quarry. Besides the front end loader will still be there later.

John

 

[BettyRubble]

. . . you are only using 10 lbs in a 7 mil suit; would you please post the rest of your rig, like what kind of BC, and what tank you're using? .

Sure.

7 mm quantum deep see wetsuit (rental)
5 mm hood (rental)
5 mm gloves (mine)
Sherwood Luna BC (rental)
72 Steel Tank (rental)
10 lbs on weight belt (mine)
Vector fins (mine)
Infinity mask (mine)
AquaLung Titan LX Reg (mine) (with octu)
Dacor mini console w/compass (mine)
Aeris XR1 wrist computer (non-nitrox)

I think that's it.

 

[BettyRubble]

. . .The ones I use are made by Tekna and are pretty old but I believe Trident has made a copy of this buckle. . .A weight belt that I like a lot uses a vintage wire bail buckle on a rubber weight belt.

The new buckle I picked up is a Trident. I like it much better.

I've heard the rubber belts are a good option. I'll look into it.

Thanks!

 

[spectrum]

That's believable, especially if:

The 72 is one of those white Scuba Pro/Faber cylinders.
The wetsuit has seen it's share of deeper dives
You are relatively lean

10 pounds is a nice place to be on the mid Atlantic seaboard.

(Edit) Oh and I just remembered, in a quarry, yes very believable.

Pete

 

[BettyRubble]

I would caution you to take everything you read on SB with a grain of salt and try stuff out for yourself.....remember anyone can be an expert behind a keyboard.

For example...one poster suggested you buy Jet Fins. If you did so you might find that your already fatigued calf muscles cramp up more frequently since the design of Jet Fins place much more stress on your calf muscles by their design.

Since your diving in quarry's you have a unique opportunity to take advantage of the shallow end of the quarry and spend hours doing and tweaking some things without having to worry about gas volumes or decompression issues. Taking time to do some of these things will pay huge dividends in your future diving ins so many ways.

1) Find a experienced buddy or hire a good instructor to spend a day with you going thru the peak performance bouyancy skills....focus on getting your trim and weighting spot on. This will take several hours if done correctly. But once done you will find diving much more pleasurable and you will use much less air. This is not a simple as adding or taking away a lb of two of lead. Once you get what you feel is the right amount located correctly then you need to become familiar with the more controlled and slower descent and lung volume control you now have available versus using you BCD inflator.
2) Spend the better part of a day swimming with your buddy in the shallow end doing nothing more than equipment familiarization. Write down all the specific things you could need to do with your equipment. Then practise them in several different positions and at several stages in a dive. With the small number of dives you have to date you will not have gotten in tune with your equipment. The faster you get everything committed to muscle memory the better you will be and the more you will be able to sense issue in advance of them happening because you know it does not feel normal.

These two things are not considered fun dives and most new divers find them boring but doing both of them will put you at least 50 dives ahead in the learning curve then those that just jump in to go see the front end loader at 40 ft in the quarry. Besides the front end loader will still be there later.

John

Thank you John! Your points are valid. I'm embarking on the ITK later this week, and a fellow SB friend has lent me her Zena to try. I am diving with it tomorrow at the quarry to get familar with it before I leave for Florida. As stupid as it sounds, I've been walking around the house in it . Getting familar with it.

Another SB'er, who is very experienced, has offered to dive with me tomorrow and help me build skills. I can't tell you how helpful it is to be 'taken under wing' by everyone. There is so much to learn and master and since I am the only diver in my family or network of friends, I could not do this without the support of veterans!

And diving in a quarry where there are fewer variables makes the learning curve a bit easier for me.

Breathing and AC is something I have been really thinking about the last couple of dives. Being a female I am fortunate to use less air the most of my diving buddies who are male, but I know I can do better. Before the incident during the 6th dive, my buoyancy control was much improved over earlier dives (although far from perfect). So I appreciate the tips on this.

I'm researching fins. I need something not too heavy but with some umpf behind them. It is hard to find a consensus on this, so I'll have to try out a few pairs before I invest. So I'm taking my Vectors to FL. If it doesn't go well the first dive, I'll buy a pair down there.

 

[TSandM]

1) Find a experienced buddy or hire a good instructor to spend a day with you going thru the peak performance bouyancy skills....focus on getting your trim and weighting spot on. This will take several hours if done correctly. But once done you will find diving much more pleasurable and you will use much less air. This is not a simple as adding or taking away a lb of two of lead. Once you get what you feel is the right amount located correctly then you need to become familiar with the more controlled and slower descent and lung volume control you now have available versus using you BCD inflator.
2) Spend the better part of a day swimming with your buddy in the shallow end doing nothing more than equipment familiarization. Write down all the specific things you could need to do with your equipment. Then practise them in several different positions and at several stages in a dive. With the small number of dives you have to date you will not have gotten in tune with your equipment. The faster you get everything committed to muscle memory the better you will be and the more you will be able to sense issue in advance of them happening because you know it does not feel normal.

This is superb advice. I know a lot of people denigrate DIR divers as "quarry commandos", because we tend to spend a lot of time (especially at the beginning) just doing drills, but I have to say that I regret NONE of the time I spent just practicing, because getting skills down has made all the subsequent, non-drill diving MUCH more fun.

With regards to the advice for Jet fins, a lot of people who use them use the frog kick, which is a pretty good kick for avoiding cramps because it incorporates a glide or rest phase into the kick. I was practicing full leg flutter kicking in the pool with one of Peter's students the other day, and I was amazed to remember how much WORK it is. (I haven't used that kick in almost four years.)

 

[BettyRubble]

With regards to the advice for Jet fins, a lot of people who use them use the frog kick, which is a pretty good kick for avoiding cramps because it incorporates a glide or rest phase into the kick. I was practicing full leg flutter kicking in the pool with one of Peter's students the other day, and I was amazed to remember how much WORK it is. (I haven't used that kick in almost four years.)

I need to learn the various kicks and practice them. Also you are absolutely right that anything that requires 'skills' should be practiced, practiced, practiced. It is an investment in safety. Of course, I'm type A so doing something means doing it as nearly perfectly as possible so practice is second nature! LOL

 

[halocline]

Sure.

7 mm quantum deep see wetsuit (rental)
5 mm hood (rental)
5 mm gloves (mine)
Sherwood Luna BC (rental)
72 Steel Tank (rental)
10 lbs on weight belt (mine)
Vector fins (mine)
Infinity mask (mine)
AquaLung Titan LX Reg (mine) (with octu)
Dacor mini console w/compass (mine)
Aeris XR1 wrist computer (non-nitrox)

I think that's it.

I'll assume that the 72 steel is an older LP steel, a little narrower and shorter than an AL80. Those are great tanks, and just about neutral when empty. The nice thing about this is that you need no weight to sink the tank. If you're a small person with low air consumption, you might look for a couple of these tanks. You can usually find them for under $50.

As Pete mentioned, 10 lbs is pretty nice with a 7 mil suit. IMO a good gear adjustment you could make is replace the BC with a steel backplate, and instead of 10 lbs on a belt you'd have 4 lbs in small pockets on your waist belt. Since it sounds like you have not yet purchased a BC, I would really consider this. Another option would be to attach 6 lbs (2 threes) to the camband(s) of your current BC and try just 4 lbs on the weight belt. This will give you a basic idea of the shift in weight distribution. It still gives you 4 lbs to ditch on the surface if you need to; as you've learned, ditching weight (planned or not) at depth is something you want to avoid.

I'd probably do this stuff before considering the buoyancy of your fins, because it will change the way you trim out in the water. Good all-around popular fins are the Mares avanti quattros. There are lots of variations on them but they're all basically the same idea, simple blades, medium stiffness, more or less neutral buoyancy.

 

[BettyRubble]

I'll assume that the 72 steel is an older LP steel, a little narrower and shorter than an AL80. Those are great tanks, and just about neutral when empty. The nice thing about this is that you need no weight to sink the tank. If you're a small person with low air consumption, you might look for a couple of these tanks. You can usually find them for under $50.

As Pete mentioned, 10 lbs is pretty nice with a 7 mil suit. IMO a good gear adjustment you could make is replace the BC with a steel backplate, and instead of 10 lbs on a belt you'd have 4 lbs in small pockets on your waist belt. Since it sounds like you have not yet purchased a BC, I would really consider this. Another option would be to attach 6 lbs (2 threes) to the camband(s) of your current BC and try just 4 lbs on the weight belt. This will give you a basic idea of the shift in weight distribution. It still gives you 4 lbs to ditch on the surface if you need to; as you've learned, ditching weight (planned or not) at depth is something you want to avoid.

I'd probably do this stuff before considering the buoyancy of your fins, because it will change the way you trim out in the water. Good all-around popular fins are the Mares avanti quattros. There are lots of variations on them but they're all basically the same idea, simple blades, medium stiffness, more or less neutral buoyancy.

Yep - old style 72's. I like them. But I dove this past weekend with another group and used Steel 80's. I ended up adding 2 lbs (diving with 12 lbs). Made keeping my safety stop easy. I am still struggling alot with buoyancy whenever I get as shallow as say 20 feet or less. And let's not even talk about being close to a wall or reef! Geez louise I'll destroy anything in sight! (Note to self: While at ITK - keep 3foot distance from reef!!!!).

Thanks for tips on shifting weights around I want to try those. Same friend who is lending me the Zena suggested a backplate too. She is going to let me try hers in the near future. We'll seek. The Zena dove well this past weekend but with the soft back plate the tank didn't feel as secure. I suspect a steel plate would fix that sensation.

I'm rambling . . better end this. Long day.

 

[Matt S.]

A weight belt that I like a lot uses a vintage wire bail buckle on a rubber weight belt. I have never had it snag or fail and is very comfortable as the rubber belt expands and contracts with the suit. I think I may also have gotten the belt from Trident, but am not 100% sure on that. This buckle makes it very simple to put a weight belt back on underwater.

I started with a nylon belt, did some reading here and tried a rubber belt--loved it. It doesn't slip and it is depth compensating.

But I like a harness even more.

To the OP, if you stick with a belt, do try rubber. And before you choose a BC, do some reading on backplate systems.

Good job on managing your incident! I had a rental plastic buckle break on me, during my very first OW class dive. Fortunately I had just stepped into the water when it happened.