Dry suit training?

[VooDooGasMan]

MarQ as lob has mentioned Guy, there is another here in seattle Lauraj, she does tweek dives where you come and practice drills with team divers. Not sure where she is instructing wise but she has set up dives with guy and brought him down for classes.

Alki was one place they had these dives and laura has posted on this forumn if you go to page 2 or 3 or even 4 you will see her thread.


What I will tell you MarQ is that you should where a weight belt, try to buy a steel tank, and put weight on the BCD of your choice. A stainless BP has a bit of weight to help also.

If your feet float try ankle weights, it distributes weight, although your type of suit might not need them.

When ascending you will get a bit of a urge to put air in and then you just tap the valve for a bit of air. You will bump the air to make yourself comfortable. then add to BCD for more buoyancy as you get deeper, then a bump of air when suit gets tight.

What will happen if you have to much air is it will escape at the neck or wrist if you get inverted to horizontal position.

You will set the exhaust valve so you just roll to make it the highest to the surface so it can escape air.

If the suit only has ten Dives and the hood looks new, there might not be a hole in the top so air goes from suit to hood, you just tap your head and air will release around face seal.

I will think of other tips as I transition back to drysuit diving for this colder season of diving.

 

[Marquito]

TSandM, thanks for the offer to check out your different backplate systems. My lack of a motorized vehicle makes getting out to Seattle's suburbs a little more of a logistical challenge. I'll be heading to NYC in about a week and should have an opportunity to check out some different systems there, but if that doesn't pan out I may grab a Zip Car and take you up on your offer.

VooDoo, I currently don't have any gear aside from a mask and snorkel, as I was using the shop's gear during my courses and didn't have room in my backpack to purchase all my kit overseas. And in the future I'll be living and diving around South East Asia. Focus for now is diving rec and staying above 130', though I imagine I'd like to explore different avenues of diving further down the road, which may include tech, instructing or photography/videography. Regarding the dry suit I'll be looking at, the super in my apartment building is the current owner. I'll ask him for more details on when it was purchased, but I know he doesn't dive anymore because of back problems, hence the few number of dives the suit has. And with regards to my avatar, I was told it was a "James Bond" entry and couldn't resist; though I may have exaggerated the entry a little bit, haha.

Lobzilla & VooDoo, thanks for the suggestions on instructors. I'll definitely look into them once I have my kit all sorted out.

Again, thanks for the tips and advice everyone. It's nice to know that there is a friendly support network of divers around here and I hope to be able to contribute back and impart some of my own knowledge at some point down the road.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[VooDooGasMan]

You as well MarQ take care and your travels of diving will gain you more experience then you can Imagine.

 

[kdupreez]

Hi Marquito,

I am a local area active instructor that teach drysuit classes and would be happy to meet you in town somewhere to discuss your training and equipment needs and would happily help you either myself or forward you to some excellent local instructors.

Guy Shockey is a GREAT instructor and he was my fundamentals instructor and is now my GUE Instructor mentor. I just completed my GUE Instructor Training Course in LA . I work with Guy closely up here regarding the scheduling of classes and building out the GUE community and will also see him this weekend on a fun-dive boat trip here in Seattle that we are doing together with a few other local GUE folks.

I coordinate the weekly Seattle TWEEK dives nowadays and it would be great to introduce you to the local crowd if you want to meet some awesome local divers and friends!

Also (sorry for the cross post) if you go on Facebook and lookup the group "NWUE", this is the FB group where tweek dives are scheduled and folks on there are very active local divers and all round awesome people.

The advice from Lynne about back plates in our local waters is spot on and I have a few extra sets that I would be more than happy to let you use for a few dives if you want to "try before you buy"?

drop me a PM and maybe we can maybe carpool in my truck to one of the local TWEEK dives?

BTW - where did you do your dive course and who was your instructor?

good luck!

cheers

Koos