Greetings,
I am playing with my first dry suit and having a heck of a time managing the air bubble in the suit. I already took a dry suit course. Can you offer some advice please?
I have a DUI TLS350 with turbo soles. I dive primarily in cool fresh water lakes with a double AL80s or double steel 130s. I use an aluminum backplate for trim purposes, steel puts me too head down. Jet fins. My trim is usually horizontal.
In one lake (50-55 degrees F) I wear my 400gm Thinsulate and require about 25 pounds of lead (with AL80s). In another lake (60-65 degrees F) I just wear thick long johns and about 6 pounds of lead (with AL80s). I use gaiters
I have been playing in the 15-25 feet range because I know buoyancy is most difficult in that transition zone. I use my wing for buoyancy, not the dry suit. I put just enough air in the dry suit to reduce squeeze.
The problem that I am experiencing has to do with the amount of air in the dry suit. When I am practicing kicks, etc., invariably the air ends up in my feet and my trim is badly thrown off. I can use even less air in the dry suit to avoid this -- I have heard the advice of the "20-foot squeeze." But that amount of squeeze is pretty intense, pretty painful, and it makes it very difficult to reach my valves, even if I stretch out before the squeeze gets bad. I also get cold with that much squeeze.
I seem stuck -- very little air in the suit = too much pain , can't reach my valves but no air in my feet. More air in the dry suit = less discomfort, can reach my valves but too much air in my feet. What to do?
The other problem arises on ascent. If I am coming up from depth (60 to 80 feet), I have a lot of air in the suit that needs to be vented. But I just can't get the air out of my dry suit quick enough. At about 10-15 feet I get an out-of-control buoyant ascent.
To avoid this I have to ascend very slowly (10 feet per minute), carefully venting both my wing and dry suit all the way up. At times my sleeve is full of air but the exhaust valve just doesn't vent (I dive with the valve all the way open all of the time). That causes me to start a buoyant ascent so I have to manually depress the valve to dump to regain control. I usually completely dump my wing on ascent because the dry suit buoyancy becomes so dominant on even a very slow ascent.
But when I get to 10-15 feet, there is still a lot of air in my sleeve that won't vent (automatically or manually) and I get a runaway ascent to the surface. I pop to the surface exhaling hard with my arm out like "chicken wing" holding down the exhaust valve, all in vain.
I have checked that my weighting is correct. I can just barely maintain position at 10 feet with 300 PSI, an empty wing and a full-on dry suit squeeze. So I don't think that I am under-weighted.
There isn't anyone in my area who has a lot of dry suit experience that I can turn to for advice. Obviously what I have been trying hasn't been working.
Insanity = Trying the same thing over and over, expecting a different result every time.
I am playing with my first dry suit and having a heck of a time managing the air bubble in the suit. I already took a dry suit course. Can you offer some advice please?
I have a DUI TLS350 with turbo soles. I dive primarily in cool fresh water lakes with a double AL80s or double steel 130s. I use an aluminum backplate for trim purposes, steel puts me too head down. Jet fins. My trim is usually horizontal.
In one lake (50-55 degrees F) I wear my 400gm Thinsulate and require about 25 pounds of lead (with AL80s). In another lake (60-65 degrees F) I just wear thick long johns and about 6 pounds of lead (with AL80s). I use gaiters
I have been playing in the 15-25 feet range because I know buoyancy is most difficult in that transition zone. I use my wing for buoyancy, not the dry suit. I put just enough air in the dry suit to reduce squeeze.
The problem that I am experiencing has to do with the amount of air in the dry suit. When I am practicing kicks, etc., invariably the air ends up in my feet and my trim is badly thrown off. I can use even less air in the dry suit to avoid this -- I have heard the advice of the "20-foot squeeze." But that amount of squeeze is pretty intense, pretty painful, and it makes it very difficult to reach my valves, even if I stretch out before the squeeze gets bad. I also get cold with that much squeeze.
I seem stuck -- very little air in the suit = too much pain , can't reach my valves but no air in my feet. More air in the dry suit = less discomfort, can reach my valves but too much air in my feet. What to do?
The other problem arises on ascent. If I am coming up from depth (60 to 80 feet), I have a lot of air in the suit that needs to be vented. But I just can't get the air out of my dry suit quick enough. At about 10-15 feet I get an out-of-control buoyant ascent.
To avoid this I have to ascend very slowly (10 feet per minute), carefully venting both my wing and dry suit all the way up. At times my sleeve is full of air but the exhaust valve just doesn't vent (I dive with the valve all the way open all of the time). That causes me to start a buoyant ascent so I have to manually depress the valve to dump to regain control. I usually completely dump my wing on ascent because the dry suit buoyancy becomes so dominant on even a very slow ascent.
But when I get to 10-15 feet, there is still a lot of air in my sleeve that won't vent (automatically or manually) and I get a runaway ascent to the surface. I pop to the surface exhaling hard with my arm out like "chicken wing" holding down the exhaust valve, all in vain.
I have checked that my weighting is correct. I can just barely maintain position at 10 feet with 300 PSI, an empty wing and a full-on dry suit squeeze. So I don't think that I am under-weighted.
There isn't anyone in my area who has a lot of dry suit experience that I can turn to for advice. Obviously what I have been trying hasn't been working.
Insanity = Trying the same thing over and over, expecting a different result every time.
