What do you drysuit divers use to compress excess air from legs?

[Herb-alaska]

Thanks for the inputs. Yes, I am getting ahead of myself. 'Just a little overexcited since I dove the suit and didn't have the cold chill down my back and the gradual cold creeping up the arms like my wetsuit. I purge the suit perhaps too well (crouch down and pull open the neck seal to bleed air on the deck) so can never wait do descend to 40ft to add air. I add air early at about 5-10 ft in small spirts otherwise I think my gonads are being clamped on. In reality, though, I see careful purging not tremendously necessary since excess air will vent as soon as you jump in and you get in water up to your neck/purge valve. Getting more familiar is a good plan as suggested and I see tremendously more enjoyable diving years ahead. Also, I noticed I wanted to tighten the automatic bleed valve on the upper arm 5 clicks away from full open. I need to trim the wrist weals a bit because my left hand was getting numb after 30 minutes. I was afraid to trim anything on this new suit because I have thin wrists and when I make a fist, tendons pop out at my wrist area making nice channels for water leaks. I'm certain this will be a problem sometime.

Vent the suit before you get in exactly the way you are doing it. You can add what you need when you need it that way you aren't fighting it from the start. I have gotten excited for a dive a couple of times and forgotten to burp the suit after zipping up done a back roll in and end up fighting to get darn feet down. Burp the suit its easier.

I have the tendon issue like a lot of people the only time I have a problem is when i am working and turning wrenches. The fix is to replace the latex seals with silicon seals. Makes a big difference for me.

The most important things is do do what you are doing , dive the suit ask questions and look at what others that you trust are doing. If you buy gaiters and use them 3 times and then they sit in the dive locker that is OK it will not be the first dive $60 that is unnecessarily spent .

Diving dry in cold water is the only way to go, but I sure dream of warm water diving again.

 

[spc751]

I had problems with air in my feet for a long time. I used my bcd for buoyancy and just enough air in the suit to prevent squeeze. But I still had trouble with floaty feet and with getting the air to the exhaust valve.

One day at the dive site a padi rectec instructor told me to leave the bcd alone and use my drysuit for buoyancy. It worked like magic. No more problems.

I listened to all the advice about keeping as little air in the suit as possible but in the end, for me, that did not work.

 

[Gareth J]

As others have said, keep the minimum amount of air in the suit that you can. With single cylinder diving, if you are correctly weighted you should really be able to control your buoyancy on the suit alone. When using twins (doubles) and stages this can become problomatic, then using the sing or BC is advisable, especially at the start of the dive,when the weight of gas is significant.
A lot of us will migrate air to the feet to help us trim out flat in the water, especially on decompression stops.

Getting good trim in the water makes like far more comfortable. You should be able to lay flat in the water without tipping head down or head up (without using your hands to skull to keep level). If you can't do this then you need to adjust the centre of gravity. The first step is more ving the cylinder up and down. (Without craving your head on the cy!under and still being able to shut down if needed). Moving weight about also helps, v weights and trim weights make this easier.

Gareth