Using your drysuit as a BC

[Phish-phood]

Horses for courses as far as I am concerned.

When I am diving in fresh water, the small amount of air that I put in to alleviate the squeeze on my drysuit is enough to get me neutral, moving around in the water after that I use my lungs. In salt water, with the extra weight I tend to use slightly more to maintain neutral and again use my lungs to move around during the dive. I use my drysuit all the time in British waters, my BC gets emptied on the surface and doesn't get filled again until I am back on the surface at the end of the dive.

I am however perfectly capable of and comfortable with using both my drysuit and my BC for bouyancy. Diving in a wetsuit when I am abroad means I don't have the drysuit to use and have to use my BC instead and I am not any less comfortable with my diving because of it.

 

[mempilot]

Diving in a wetsuit when I am abroad means I don't have the drysuit to use and have to use my BC instead and I am not any less comfortable with my diving because of it.

Good point.

 

[JamesT]

I have the whole thing even more simplified. I use my drysuit for comfort and my bc for trim. I am weighted so with a comfterble(sp?) amount of air in my suit, I can be neutral with almost no air in my BC, yet able to stay under at 15 feet with under 500psi in an aluminium 80 at the end of a dive.

To make it even easier, my exhaust valve for my suit is just below my left wrist, so if I set the resistance right, it dumps the perfect amount when I let air out of my BC. I don't rely on it to keep my buoyancy right, but it usually works an ascent.