gr8white:
Anyone with a thick wetsuit (7mm or more) should not take this advice, and in my opinion should not be scuba diving either.
OK, I gotta ask...what does this mean? Where do you dive that you need a dry suit if too cold for a 3 mil suit? I'm dying to hear this. Real mean wear 7 mil...not dry suits.
There is a place for thick wetsuits. For British Columbia diving, with water temperatures of 45 - 50 degrees fahrenheit, my daughter and I use dry suits. However, my wife, who is a bit better "insulated', tried a shore dive with drysuit on a hot Summer day, and nearly collapsed. She promptly traded it for a thick wetsuit instead. It may be matter of individual preferance, but a drysuit with tight seals is absolute murder for shore dives into cold water on really hot days.
Such (ocean) diving requires me to carry over 30 lbs of weight with a steel tank, and over 35 with a standard 80 cu ft aluminum. I've found that the only reasonable way to carry this much weight is by putting a five pound plate into the trim pounches, and a five and a three in each of the removable pouches on my BC, PLUS six to ten pounds on a weight belt. A tank weight can provide a way of compensating for the extra buoyancy of aluminum tanks, but is only handy for tanks with a boot. Alternatively, a second tank retaining strap can hold a couple of small weights, as well as making the tank more secure. (Having once had a tank come loose at about 85 feet, in current, on a night dive, I highly recommend these in any case!).
I also have to strongly agree that Velcro is *not* the way to go with integrated weights. But what is the solution for those of us who have top-line older BC's that are still in good shape, but use velcro?
