saga of a rookie dry suit diver

[CanuckInTexas]

So this evening my dive buddy and I attempted to have a nice long evening dive; the moon was shinning and the visibility at 90 feet was crystal clear.

Unfortunately this dive was not to be like the rest; I was wearing my new dry suit and I made such a rookie mistake, I severely underweighted myself. After 20 minutes of diving, my tank started to empty as well we started our gradual assent into shallower water. It was at this time I discovered that I was no longer in full control of my buoyancy.

To make a long story short, we were diving in a man made lake, due to the local Dam, and I had to crawl up to the surface skipping from large rock to large rock. At 20 feet, I had to get my buddy to release air form my wrist seal since I was holding onto the bottom with my left arm.

We learned a valuable lesson this night. When you start dry suit diving expect a large learning curve just like when you first starting diving and also check your ego at the shore when you start diving dry.

 

[jetfixer]

What a bummer! I would think a drysuit class and some pool time would remedy this.

 

[Warthaug]

Sounds a lot like my first drysuit dive. Half a tank down, and all of a sudden I'm a cork. Funny thing is that a dozen dives later I was back down to the weight I was using that first dive. In my case my bouyancy problems wern't due to under weighting, but rather poor managment of the air in my suit.

Trust me - it'll get a lot better, real quick.

Bryan

PS: Think this was bad, wait until your first flood. Too much postivie bouyancy is nothing compared to too much negative. . .