Quote:
| Originally Posted by Mal Bridgeman Hi Nick,
There is a truism once quoted on this board, that "you need what you need" so whether that's a lot or a little is pretty irrelevant so long as it's accurate.
In my experience most people overestimate what they need because they actually don't like the feeling of neutral buoyancy.
Try searching the archives for an article by Mark Powell on buoyancy control which included a piece on proper weighting.
I think this is best achieved with someone else's help though, and changes should be made in small steps. When you said you felt uncomfortable on your stop you did not say how much gas you still had in your wing or whether you were finning upwards or downwards during the stop. That would give additional clues. I think that changing your overall weight in chunks of 2kg is going to make it hard for you to get comfortable with it.
If I were you I would go back to basics, get 30bar in your twins, dress up fully and go in a swimming pool with the weight you normally use minus 3kg. Put as much of the remaining weight as you can on a weight belt in 1 kg chunks. Then dump the gas from your BC till you are firmly rooted to the bottom of the pool, wait a minute or two to chill out and make sure you are calm.....it's quite likely that in hte heat of the pool environment you may well be puffing a bit so take this time to chill. When you are happy you are relaxed take 1kg off, wait a minute or so to get used to that and if you are still rooted to the bottom then take another 1kg off and repeat till you feel that breathing in just lifts you off the bottom but not in a way that sends you rocketing to the surface. Try swimming round the pool and you should feel quite light but not uncomfortable.
Add the 3kg back on when you go sea diving then stick with it for a good series of dives then re-evaluate. If you still feel too light then either you did not do the weight check properly or there is something else causing the problem.....e.g. you are not effectively dumping gas from BC or suit, or you are breathing too heavily which can then be addressed separately.
HTH
Mal |
i have to agree with mal.
remember if you have the right weight at the end of the dive you will feel quite heavy at the start.
5000lts of compressed gas does weigh quite a bit.