Weight and buoyancy questions.

[DivingDoc]

We are going out to Moorehead in a couple of weeks. I understand that the "dive boats" there are really converted fishing boats. This means that one has to climb up a 4' "fin ladder" with all of one's gear on to get out of the water.

I have so far been living a more "genteel" diving life -- that is, in Cozumel, you hand up your weights to a crewmember, then hand up your BC and tank, then your flippers, THEN you climb up the ladder, which ends only about 6 inches off the water with only your wetsuit on.

My concern: I'm not sure my decrepid old knees and quads can take this.

My plan: I thought that to get ready, I would don my gear bag with all my gear in it and put on a weight belt equivalent to the total of the weights I'll need and the weight of my tanks and walk up and down the stairs in my house a few times every other day or so.

My problem: I'm not sure about 1) how much my tanks will weigh; and 2) how much weight I will need for bouyancy adjustment.

In Cozumel, I was wearing a .5mm compressed neoprene skin, used an 80 cf rental tank. I needed 17lbs of weight -- though I probably could have gotten along with less if it weren't for the fact that if I used 16, I couldn't stay down on the safety stop (for those of you who don't drift dive, in Coz, you don't have any lines to cling to on your safety. You just have to hover 15' down.)

At Moorehead, I'm going to be renting both an 80 cf tank and a 13 cf pony bottle. I am also going to be wearing a 3mm Henderson Hyperstretch wetsuit instead of my skin.

I have also been told that the water is saltier down in Cozumel than up north because of the evaporation effect of the constant warm weather.

So -- what are y'all's estimates? How much weight will I need to plan on for bouyancy control and how much does an 80 cf tank plus a 13 cf pony tank weigh?

Thanks in advance for all of your help.

ET

 

[Genesis]

with a skin.

I need 15 with a 3/2 wetsuit.

If indeed you do need 17 with a skin, then here's my "best guess..."

Add 7-9 for the 3mil over the skin.

The AL80 is about 32lbs empty (39 or so full); its a push since you were using that before (its roughly +4 empty)

The 13cf pony is ~6lbs empty and for buoyancy is about -1.5 full and 0.7 empty (take a pound off your weight diving with it)

Hope that helps.... YMMV.

 

[Tavi]

If you're slinging the pony like a stage bottle, don't take off the 1 pound,
if you hand it off to another diver in need of air, you'll be a pound light!!

 

[Genesis]

I was assuming the pony was going to be hard-mounted... if you're carrying it as a stage then you can't count it in your kit's intinsic weight...