Warm water trim.

[Codyjp]

When I spend a couple thousand bucks on a dive trip I'm not too concerned with the potential baggage fee.

For the record though, I've never once paid a fee. I seem to always find a work around to avoid it. From my experience, baggage add ons are only for domestic flights, not international.

And plus, how else are the airlines going to make a net [-]profit[/-] loss?

 

[rongoodman]

OMS Slipstreams can be purchased at my favorite online retailer, ScubaToys.

Slipstreams in size L are out there too, although I don't see them on the Scubatoys site. Leisurepro has them, although they've run out from time to time.

 

[Damselfish]

When I spend a couple thousand bucks on a dive trip I'm not too concerned with the potential baggage fee.

For the record though, I've never once paid a fee. I seem to always find a work around to avoid it. From my experience, baggage add ons are only for domestic flights, not international.

It's not necessarily a matter of fees. If you are on a smaller plane someplace in your itinerary - not uncommon in some island destinations - an extra or overweight bag may simply not make it on the plane with you, period. It may sit around until a later flight, along with a higher probability of getting lost or pilfered while it's sitting around.

Traveling lighter overall can also be a good thing for other reasons. If you're simply dropping your bags on a convenient belt at one end and picking them up and rolling them through customs on the other, maybe it doesn't matter so much. But some trips you can wind up handling your luggage a lot more than that.

 

[Skookumchuck]

The fins I used are Tusa split fins, and yes I know they'll eventually cause my untimely demise, and ten pounds of lead in BCD pockets. I think the most prudent course of action would be a pair of slipstreams and a return trip with more time for weighting experimentation.
Thanks to all for replying.

 

[4sak3n]

When I go from my BP/W to a jacket BCD my trim gets ruined too. Well, not ruined, but I'm always much more tired because I have to compensate more with my body posture. It is a constant struggle to keep my feet up and me trimmed out.

The point is that the 1 or 2 pounds positive buoyancy added over your lungs by the jacket can make a big difference to my trim.

So if I were you I would investigate putting more weight higher up on your body (perhaps on your cambands) to push your chest down first before buying new, positively buoyant fins to pull your feet up.

 

[Peter Guy]

I'm still trying to understand the OP's issue -- which apparently was that he couldn't hang motionless is a horizontal position because he would SLOWLY go vertical. To which I say, who cares? What's the problem?

I had the same "problem" a few months ago on a dive off of Molokini where we did a very nice drift dive along a wall (not the back wall btw). I fought for a while to maintain a horizontal position and then thought, why? I'm on a wall, I'm not kicking, I'm drifting and looking at the pretty fishies -- who cares what position I'm in? So I just let my body rotate to where IT wanted to go, cut down my SAC and floated along. If I wanted to move, I just rotated and went -- my buddy was right there along with me (most of the time -- actually a very nice insta-buddy).

As long as you aren't kicking something, what difference does it make?

 

[ligersandtions]

Locally, I dive in a drysuit with an HP130. In warm water, I dive in a wetsuit (7mm though cause I'm a wuss!) with an Al80. I found that holding horizontal trim was not effortless like it was at home....I found, however, that if I put some weight on my cam bands, rather than only in a weight belt, it helped tremendously.

It may be a matter of both your exposure protection and what tank you're using. Some positively buoyant fins may help as well, but I didn't end up needing them.

To respond to Peter's question.....I also had the moving to vertical problem if I tried to hover motionlessly. I ended up fighting myself the whole time (sculling with my feet to hold position) and was just sick of it, so I found a solution to my problem. I'd guess that's the OP's issue....not necessarily that they need to be horizontal at all times, but because they don't want to have to fight to be horizontal when they want to be. At least that's how I felt.

 

[TSandM]

To answer Peter's question . . . I dd the first dive on our South Pacific trip last year overweighted and with the weight in the wrong place. I felt off balance and uncomfortable the whole time. I COULD have allowed myself to go vertical when I stopped, but I would have had to stay much further off the reef, which would have made looking for porcelain crabs a little challenging . . . When you are used to being balanced, being unbalanced is taking away a little of the joy of effortless floating in the water. I applaud the OP for trying to figure out how to regain that thoughtless ability to be motionless.

 

[r2t]

I packed my sp jet fins to Bonaire and even though my trim was fine it was work to keep my legs bent up and also my camera was heavy and hard on my shoulder. Here at home in my drysuit the air keeps my feet up and air in my arm helps with the camera. Little differences that I noticed. Shoulder pads on my harness would have been nice as a 3mm doesn't provide much padding.

Ron L.

 

[Codyjp]

For small trim issues it can be a matter of arm placement. I find that in the tropics I can use my hands to control my trim very effectively.

That being said, I use a steel plate, jets and don't use any weight when I travel so I am very aware of my weighting issues before I get to my destination.

Damselfish, when I went to Guanaja we had to charter a Turbo Commander 560 to complete our last leg. The Jets still managed to get shoved through the door of the plane. I now take my F1's with me along with my 6# plate and can light. I don't travel thousands of miles to dive crappy equipment. I also bring spares of just about everything. This will all fit nicely into my 2x50# bags plus carry on, and If I'm lucky I'll have room to bring a t shirt back, but only if I can get things dried out before I pack.