differences in men and women while diving

[NAM001]

Your point #1 is valid, however your #2 is straightlout of the childcare nanny manual. What is the issue of those who do not want you assistance. Are you feeling rejected because you are a woman or,,,,,, is your percieved guide position / authority being disrespected. You obviously understand that men and women work differently, and yet you insist that women need to teach men to yeild to your need to intervien. Personally i dont think any one cares about your NEED to mommy them. Men work out problems on an individual basis and women work them out in a group effort. Of course women appreciate you injecting help. Men see it as an imposition, and do not want help unless they ask for it. We have a process that allows us to function independantly, intervention interferes with that. Why do we do a blind decent and not use the line. Because we can and do not want to be DEPENDANT on the crutch (line). We dont want to use it to control our accent and decent rates. Its a skills building thing. Gee it may not be there when we come back up. If i need wuss water then i will ask. As resources go you are not a mandated resource. You are there at our option to use. Your ideas on how my gear should be set up is of no interest to me because my configuration is what works for me, even if it does not work for you. If i put my rig on and cant get my crotch strap i will take it off and try again. If i cant then i will ask my buddy to untangle it. As last resort I will spread them and call you to help. Lastly most of us do not need you to enrich our diving experience. We can do that for our self, contrary to your assumption. The enrichment comes from the dive not the prep. hahaha Ultimately your nannyness could learn a lot from men.

Hey, I have been diving professionally for years. I have had a great decade of guiding and teaching others on their dive vacations..

a couple main differences i noticed, I wanted to share and see if anyone else is noticing that

1. weight positions. because womens center of gravity is a bit lower than mens, weight positioning is different. I would recommend tank weights low onthe tank, but dont make your back/tank area so heavy that it guides you. IE the faber steel tanks are sometimes so heavy for a lady that it pulls her if she is not exactly trim. If you dont want your weights on your back then around your waist try moving the weights forward a bit.. not so far that the clip cant hold it. nor all of them that your back is pulled down to compensate but having them more infront of your hips helps to get a comfortable trim.

2. Gear up. This is what i love. I am a cold and warm water guide and am here to help. which means i am going to help you. So as you gear up. I am there for you and as a female guide i insist that you use me. wether it is to help put your dry gloves on . to make sure your mask skirt is clear of hair or gear or throwing wuss water on you when you are topside. I am going to help you and female divers are much more acceptant of it.. NOW. when we learn diving we learn to use our resources. it is the smartest way to dive. IE. why would you do a blind decent if there is a decent line there. so why not combine me in your gear up routine instead of showing that you can do it yourself. I know you can do it yourself. You are certified and i am trusting you on the dive. I know you can do it. but I am here to not help but enhance your experience so let me in.. haha Ladies could teach the gentlemen alot in that regard.

what do you notice as the main differences

 

[tracydr]

Well, my first question is, what is it about your safety stops that you aren't executing "perfectly"? Can you not hold depth, or is it that you aren't in horizontal trim, or that you can't sit still?

My second reaction is that, given the height and weight data and the lack of exposure protection, you are likely to be significantly overweighted with 14 lbs of lead. That's just about the amount that I use for warm water diving in my DRY SUIT, and I'm a floater. I think solving your problem should begin with a good, formal weight check.

If your difficulty is keeping depth at the stop, and particularly if you are tending to float up, it's likely that one of the issues is too much air in your BC, which makes any upward deviation from your precise depth highly likely to be self-perpetuating. If you can be at the stop with little or no air in the BC, then the only thing that will make you float is a change in your breathing pattern -- and if you're anxious about holding the stop, it's probable that you change your breathing to a more anxious pattern, holding more air in your lungs, when you begin to worry.

If your problem is trim, you solve that by moving weight around. But I think you should start by determining precisely how much weight you actually need to carry -- I suspect it's quite a bit less than you are using.

I agree. With an AL 63 and a skin, I use 4 pounds and with my HP 85 I don't use any extra weight. I'm about the same weight as she is, 5'2, 145. This is with my old BC, not my BP/Wing.

 

[MrsBBC]

Another thing I see is the relationship between stature and trim. Guys who are six feet tall and wear jet fins can balance head-heavy tanks much easier, because they can get those negative feet a lot further away from their bodies. Women, I think, have to do more with static weighting. I'm basing this on the fact that I've had several instructors (all tall men) insist that I didn't need the weights I had carefully set up for myself, and they have said that I should be able to balance everything out with body posture. It doesn't work very well if you are basically a set of tanks with a head and feet sticking out of them.

This!

I always feel head heavy (in twins) without ankle weights. When I swapped out my jet fins for my instructors force fins under water I had no control, was upside and all over the place, even trying to stay upright vertical was a pain.
I have only completed 15 twinset dives, using 3 different rigs;
Al80s, long 3mm, jetfins,
Al80s, rash vest, jet fins / lighter jet fin style fins
Twin 12s, Crushed Neoprene drysuit, jet fins / jet fins plus ankle weights

And on only 1 dive (my first one) was I comfortably trim.
I chucked a 1-2kg butt weight on, just to be on the safe side, dived in.
Body posture works to an extent! But my rig needs a lot of tweaking to stop the nose diving

Nic

 

[NAM001]

I had sa similar issue and the problem was the wing. i had a bpw set up for my dry suit and 300 gram undies that required nearly 40# of weight for me to carry. the bulk at the waist. the wing i had purchaced had a shape that provided most of the lift at the waist. great trim was happy. then i got a 100 gram set of undies and i needed 20# of weight at the waist. if i was diving with and up angle say 10 degrees then things were ok as soon as i went horizintal the bubble went to the waist and i became feet light. more like a fishing bobber actually. i bought a doughnut shaped wing with the high spot in the mid tank as opposed to the bottom of the tank and again all is well.

This!

I always feel head heavy (in twins) without ankle weights. When I swapped out my jet fins for my instructors force fins under water I had no control, was upside and all over the place, even trying to stay upright vertical was a pain.
I have only completed 15 twinset dives, using 3 different rigs;
Al80s, long 3mm, jetfins,
Al80s, rash vest, jet fins / lighter jet fin style fins
Twin 12s, Crushed Neoprene drysuit, jet fins / jet fins plus ankle weights

And on only 1 dive (my first one) was I comfortably trim.
I chucked a 1-2kg butt weight on, just to be on the safe side, dived in.
Body posture works to an extent! But my rig needs a lot of tweaking to stop the nose diving

Nic

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

On the help thing ... maybe it's a guy thing ... kinda like asking for directions.

The biggest difference I've noticed between my male and female dive buddies is their (in general) approach to the dive. Men tend to be goal-oriented ... when they get in the water they have someplace to go. Seems like when my female buddies get in the water, they are where they wanted to be. As someone who typically carries a camera and likes to go really slow, I generally find it easier to dive with women ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Zmajcek]

As for the helping goes... please don't try to help. EVER. If I need help I will ask.
Whenever someone tries they just mess everything up. Only time I really need help is getting twin tanks to the water, and getting them out.
I think I would kill (verbally at least) someone trying to put my gear together instead of me, or touching it, and messing with it. I don't understand divers who are so ready to let others do this for them.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Trying to touch my OC gear without my asking you for help will earn you a warning the first time, and a physical intervention should you attempt it again. Reach for anything on/around my rebreather at your own peril.

If I want you to snap, clip, or otherwise help me with something - I'll tell you. If you think you see something you could/should help with, then ask me - with your words, not your fingers. Though I haven't noticed this is necessarily a male/female distinction in tech diving, it is perhaps more common in rec diving to see men with my attitude and women with an attitude of focusing on how you're trying to help rather than how you're potentially screwing up their gear.

 

[Akimbo]

Commercial divers start their careers learning to be tenders and are very good at it. Unfortunately, all the divemasters I have encountered totally suck at it, especially the ones who can’t communicate non-verbally and anticipate. The cues aren’t hard to read.

Divermasters don’t automatically earn a diver’s confidence and respect by virtue of having a job as a junior deck hand. This is one of those human relationships that begin with both evaluating and being suspicious of the other. Insisting or “helping” without being invited is not a divemaster’s job and is not appreciated.

Hauling heavy gear alone is often safer on a pitching deck, especially if one person hasn’t got their sea legs yet. You can both get hurt if one person loses their footing. Granted, you can do a face-plant hauling alone, but there is usually an exit strategy when you do.

 

[t4e]

i have a buddy, that happens to be my husband, therefore i have all the help i need

 

[rivers]

If I need help, I will ask for it. Generally speaking, I don't need help moving my kit around, or setting my kit up, or getting into it. If I don't know you, and you touch my kit without asking, I will tell (not ask) you to stop. But I don't tend to run into this problem in the UK. At the end of a diving day, my mates and I tend to help each other get our twinsets back into the car. Mainly, because it's easier for 2 people to lift it.
If I don't know you, if I'm not diving with you, don't touch my kit.