I have been told to consider dry suits when diving steel tanks. I have bee diving them for years - in both wet and drysuit. But never really see if that is true. Several hundred dives later, I have not died yet! That is a YET. So I descended to 80 ft today with 120 HP single steel. 4 lbs ditchable weight, and 2 none. No backplates. Tried to fin up, but barely able to maintain more than 1 minute when the BC is empty. I had a small pony too, which is like another 2 lbs. I tried the lift bag. It worked, but not well. The dump valve is high, but lacking good control as a lot of air has to be added before you can dump. So the large lift bag as a redundant BC is not ideal. Suggestions to make diving safer with steel tanks? Thicker wetsuits? Better brand lift bags? Always dive where there is a safe hard bottom? Please do not say drysuit??
