first dry suit dive

[Storker]

Ah. Try closing the suit dump valve just a couple of clicks. And keep your trim. With a standard upper arm mounted dump valve and in horizontal trim, the suit keeps the air pretty well until you lift your left elbow and roll a little to the right. That's the technique I'm using to dump air from my suit.

Alternatively, you could close the valve completely and rely on pushing it when you want to dump. I close my arm valve if I for some reason ascend head-up.

EDIT: And try using your BCD as little as possible on ascents or descents. As soon as you're neutral with a comfortable amount of air in your suit, you shouldn't have to change the amount of air in your BCD when you ascend or descend since if you're comfortable at 5m, and then add enough air to be comfortable at 30m, your suit - and by extension, you - will have exactly the same volume and the same buoyancy.

 

[stuartv]

Problem is it's not leaving any air in suit. I want a little to keep squeeze off.

You already said the right answer:

Sure I could close it a little more but I think I'll just use the suit and only use bcd at surface.

If you add more air to your suit than just what you need to eliminate squeeze and let your undergarments have the loft they need to keep you warm, then you are really just making your buoyancy and trim that much harder to manage. That extra air can run all around inside your suit playing havoc. For example: You tilt yourself a little head down to look under something and all that extra air heads towards your feet. Now you're going even more head down. Your feet rising up 3 or 4 feet higher lets that air expand and now you're off to the races (towards the surface). Not to mention that depending on how your suit and fins fit, having a bunch of air rush into your feet can possibly result in actually having your fins pop off.

 

[KathyIGH]

2nd dive in it tonight went great. still a little learning curve to it but I'm getting the hang of it. almost perfectly dry tonight. only time I got any water was a wrist seal when grabbing a handle on a sunken boat and instantly felt water come in. learning the ropes but have come a long ways since sunday and tomorrow hopefully will be even better.

That's AWESOME! You might be able to adjust the location on your wrist for a better seal. Make a fist and curl your wrist. See if you have prominent tendons. It is very common. Could you move the seal up a little further for a drier seal? Some divers really have an issue here and it's one big advantage to attached dry gloves.

Sounds like your dive was fantastic! Way to go.

Kathy

 

[Trailboss123]

Problem is it's not leaving any air in suit. I want a little to keep squeeze off.

If you have a dump valve on your BC (top right shoulder), then reach across with your left hand or even use your right hand to pull on the string and dump air from your BC instead of having to raise up your left arm while dumping from the low pressure inflator hose. If in a horizontal position, reach back and dump air from your BC using the dump valve on the bottom of your BC.

 

[FinnMom]

I don't tuck my neck seal. If I ever get so vertical (usually only happens if I spend time bobbing on the surface, but on boat dives I often do) that rising & escaping air untuck/unroll the seal (leaving it straight up against my neck), the seal can settle on my neck with a wrinkle, or on top of neck hair. After having a poorly seated neck seal leak a few times, I started always seating it very carefully, and straight up. For me this has definely caused fewer leaks.

It could be a short-long hair difference: someone with shorter hair, esp. men, often have the hair on the back of their neck shaved. Persons with long hair probably do not have the hair shaven, and if their neck seal moves it may more easily settle on top of hair.

 

[FinnMom]

Exactly, don't roll it down like a little donut, bad bad. You can most definitely can tuck it inward OR what I do is I actually pop it over my head and then work the seal down my neck to the point that it no longer wants to "roll" down my neck. Once I have done that I have a solid inch of neck seal against my neck and have zero leaking issues from moving my head around.

This is what works best for my daughter and I.