Weighing

    The volume of air in your lungs does affect you bouyancy, but on the surface you shouldn't have to struggle to stay high enough to breath thru your snorkle. 40 ft is deep, swim to 30 ft then stop kicking what happens? It may be slow at first, but you should increase speed with depth.


    Also try to stay Hydrodynamic, looking down arches the back and then it looks like a banana sinking in the water. Stay Hydodynamic, by not looking down, keep your arms close to your body, after you feel the freefall use your fins to level out or change directions. In current, use you side into current not your back or front. Look down just long enough at the beginning to see that you are indeed vertical and not at an angle. then return your head so your looking upside down across the water column. Hope this helps...


    Dive Safe
    John

    It is a balancing act between seeing where you're going/ending up where you want to be and being hydrodynamic. Most of the time I somewhat sacrifice being hydrodynamic as my goal is not to simply reach the bottom. I prefer to spot a fish and angle my approach as soon as possible.


    I removed one more weight today so I'm down to five 1.25lb weights total 6.25lb. I have to say I really like it all around. Less weight to carry from the car to the boat. Less weight to carry in the water is easier on the back, I barely feel the belt and weights now. There was no perceptible change in ease of getting down. I did pay more attention to the buoyancy. I believe with lungs full of air I'm neutral at around 15ft. It seems perfect now but if I can get away with removing one more weight even better. I'll try to remove another weight on the next dive.

    Well Dan if the bottom is 60 ft away you don't need to be looking down unless you saw a 60 lb. Carbo from the surface. Maximizing your bottom time is what it is all about, sacrificing you descent time will eventually sacrifice your total underwater time not just your bottom time.


    Getting to the bottom quickly and efficiantly (sp) is your best option.

    Are you saying that you don't look for a target until you're horizontal on the bottom?


    Firefox is a better browser and it automatically spell checks as a post is written. If it finds mistakes they're underlined in red. You right click on the word and are offered the correct spelling alternatives.

    Quote from Spearo_fla

    Well Dan if the bottom is 60 ft away you don't need to be looking down unless you saw a 60 lb. Carbo from the surface. Maximizing your bottom time is what it is all about, sacrificing you descent time will eventually sacrifice your total underwater time not just your bottom time.


    Getting to the bottom quickly and efficiantly (sp) is your best option.


    I totally agree with you John. ;)

    Marco Melis

    A bad day fishing is ALWAYS better than a good day at work.

    Unless I think there is a target between me and the bottom then right I don't usually look till I'm horizontal.


    Again, looking down will only decrease your drop time. This depends greatly upon your normal diving depth, mine is usually between 50-70. If viz is bad I can't see the bottom anyways.


    I use a Macbook mostly, with Safari.

    Update on weighing:


    I went lobstering from 8-30 ft during miniseason and switched to 5lbs of lead wearing shorts and a shirt.


    Later in the day we went to 50-70 ft reef to shoot some fish. I forgot to change down to 2.5 lbs and decided to go ahead since I used to wear 6lbs before.


    The difference was incredibly noticeable especially kicking up to the surface. I was neutral at about 15-20 ft but man I really felt it kicking back up. It was really uncomfortable trying to get back up and my dive times decreased from before for about 10-15s. I would reach the surface with the need to breath where as before I would hardly feeel the urge while diving longer.


    A couple of dives in I changed back to 2.5lbs and all was well again.

    Davie Peguero

    I used to wear lots of lead when I started diving, ever since I had my BO, I started dropping weight off my belt.
    Last time out I was wearing 5lbs with a 1mm top diving in 30-40', and it was fine since it was so shallow, but then we moved to 55-65 stuff and all of a sudden coming back up was a lot of work, so I dropped 1lb and was neutral around 25', positive from 20' up. which was a good compromise for performance.


    For me it's important to have a balance dive, if I'm too bouyant and I have to kick all the way to the bottom I don't do as well, not just bottom time wise but hunting too. In 60-70, I prefer to be neutral around 25-30, and sink slowly from 40 down, not moving at all until I hit the bottom. I've found out that muttons like this approach and they come say hi to me :D


    I seldom look for fish when I'm heading down, unless I saw something prior to the dive, and I always go to the bottom on every dive, then look for fish. some people like the approach of hovering 20-30' above the bottom to look for a target, I like the approach of touching bottom on every dive, it's more efficient for me.

    China V.I.P

    I'm now using four 1.25lb weights so a total of 5lb. I'm wearing 1mm pants and a Lycra top. Today I found myself slightly positive at about 15ft. This is inconvenient on very shallow dives as I had to hold on to the bottom to stay there, but I only do those depths when beach diving on the way to deeper water. Diving from the boat %99 of the time we go deeper, so I will continue using 5lb on the boat and keep one extra weight around just in case. I've gotten accustomed to kicking most of the way down on deeper dives, it doesn't seem to take too much air. Getting back to surface of course is much easier, especially towards the end of the day. Overall diving is more comfortable, no back problems. I like that there's less weight to lug around in general. I believe I'm going to continue diving with this weight until it's time to readjust for the winter. I don't foresee dropping any more weight off the belt with my current diving attire unless when I lose weight (I'm exercising) I will become less buoyant.

    Quote from pargo

    I'm now using four 1.25lb weights so a total of 5lb. I'm wearing 1mm pants and a Lycra top. Today I found myself slightly positive at about 15ft. This is inconvenient on very shallow dives as I had to hold on to the bottom to stay there, but I only do those depths when beach diving on the way to deeper water. Diving from the boat %99 of the time we go deeper, so I will continue using 5lb on the boat and keep one extra weight around just in case. I've gotten accustomed to kicking most of the way down on deeper dives, it doesn't seem to take too much air. Getting back to surface of course is much easier, especially towards the end of the day. Overall diving is more comfortable, no back problems. I like that there's less weight to lug around in general. I believe I'm going to continue diving with this weight until it's time to readjust for the winter. I don't foresee dropping any more weight off the belt with my current diving attire unless when I lose weight (I'm exercising) I will become less buoyant.



    I use a couple of these on my belt:
    http://neptonicsystems.com/quick-weight.htm


    Basically, with a full belt, I'm neutral at 5ft... perfect for shallow surgy areas where I want to stay on the bottom without much fuss. Take 1 weight off and I'm neutral somewhere between 15-25ft, depending on suit. Take 2 off and I'm neutral at 25-35ft.


    Easy & quick to match my diving depths.

    I cheat with weight.
    As I yak dive I am surface swimming carrying my 3lb grapnel anchor with 1 1/2f ss chain. I wear 5lbs on my belt with a 1.5mil suit now.
    This works great for me as when I want to drop to the bottom the anchor/chain aids my decent so that I don't have to kick past 10fsw or so AND I get to the bottom quick, easy and quiet.:D
    When it is time to go up I can continue holding the anchor or set it on the bottom and get back up fast without burning much O2.
    Without my anchor I adjust my weight to be neutral at half the depth I'm diving
    If I'm diving deep [+50fsw for me] I wear my vest :)

    Final adjustment to the weight. Today diving with 5lb I had to kick all the way down to 60ft. I couldn't get to into a glide at all. I found that doing it this way messes with me psychologically and negatively affects my bottom time. I put on one more weight, so now I was at 6.25lb and got into a glide at 40-45ft. All other considerations are secondary to being able to stop kicking at around 40-45ft so this is the weight I'm finally staying with, except if I lose weight and become less buoyant. Getting back up with 6.25lb is still fairly easy compared to the weight I had on at the very beginning. I was diving in a Lycra top and bathing trunks BTW.

    Environmental protection. I got stung badly by a Portuguese man o war about 8 years ago, I was wearing a shorty wetsuit and still it got me very bad. You can't really avoid them at times. There's also fire coral and some people get sunburned.

    Quote from sdeisen88

    why do so many of you guys where these skins and wet suits?


    Do you need to ask???? To look cool :cool2: The problem is that you're only seeing from the chest up. If you see the bottom half(cough, speedos, cough, cough, underwear:D) then you would really be confused.:laughing3:

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