From: Jason O'Rourke To: ba_diving@lists.best.com Subject: Warm, but very buoyant Well, after last week's note many people wrote to say that my weight belt would get heavier once I started wearing enough to stay warm. And I did indeed discover this on Saturday in Sonoma. I added a pair of sweat pants and a nice synthetic pile sweater. For reasons that escape me now, I actually removed 2 pounds from the belt, thinking that I was way overweighted at 20 the previous week. So I head out and while I can force a descent by emptying the lungs, I can't stay down. Perhaps we should have gone further out, but it wasn't happening at 15 with a full tank. Not helping is that visibility is pisspoor (thanks to the Russian River and rain runoff) and the surge a bit exciting. So in I come, adding 6 pounds to get to 24. Then I run into my next snag. I'm at Gerstle with the group from the biology class. The instructor informed me early that diving as a third person is not an option, and now that the DMs had no interest in going back in the water. 'We'll get you in the water tomorrow.' Anyone that knows me can imagine how acceptable I found that solution. But I was fairly polite, respectful. As soon as the group was done, I went in. By now it was 2pm and the typical afternoon choppiness on the north coast was evident. One moment it looked nice and flat, then suddenly a 5 minute maelstrom rolls in. So I stayed within the cove area and dropped down into a rock field that varied between 14 and 20 ft. The abalone there very quite active and I saw many extending their shell offthe rock to feed on kelp. But it is very surgy and I'm having trouble keeping from bouncing around. All those sea urchins scare me - didn't want to puncture my suit so quickly. I wanted to breathe my tank to empty, but that wasn't going to happen in these conditions in 15ft. Even at 1600 I felt even at best, so at 500 I was likely to need a couple more. When a particular spectacular wave of surge hit, I decided I had accomplished enough for the day. No need to spend more time alone on a beach. (When I exited, I found some of the DMs still waiting; they left soon after I got out. Don't know if they were asked to do so, but we could have easily done that hours earlier) Just about everyone that commented voted against using the suit exclusively for buoyancy. That was a nonissue in 15ft; I never inflated. It seems to me that if properly weighted, the BC would only need to be used to counteract the air in th tank, but I do see a problem in environments where you dip up and down 5ft. My exhaust valve is quick to vent, whereas the BC would not. I think I need to get in deeper waters again, hopefully with viz > 4ft. I was quite warm this time, but I've decided it would be easier to go with the matching garments. So one more time, I'll need to get weighting down. Thanks for all the helpful advice. I think I'm going to write up my reports and your comments on a web page covering the adaptation to dry suit use.