So excited, I could just dive...

[scububa]

Rumor has it my drysuit will be in on Tuesday. Of course work is going to prevent me from picking it up for an extra week. But, it won't be long now.

Help, I've inverted and I can't get up,
Jim

[nauifins73]

Rumor has it my drysuit will be in on Tuesday. Of course work is going to prevent me from picking it up for an extra week. But, it won't be long now.

Help, I've inverted and I can't get up,
Jim

On of the reasons I haven't gotten mine yet - I can imagine more feet 1st ascents than head first (I've seen a few do it that way) :)

But way cool on your new toy - I got several pieces for my Dive Con course always lot of fun

[MgicTwnger]

Jim,

It may take a while, but you'll eventually be kicking yourself for not getting one sooner. It took me about six months to get totally at ease, there are a whole lot of skills to master and adjustments to make. Ya just have to dive and tweak things until they feel right.

[Laser]

Jim,

It may take a while, but you'll eventually be kicking yourself for not getting one sooner. It took me about six months to get totally at ease, there are a whole lot of skills to master and adjustments to make. Ya just have to dive and tweak things until they feel right.

Right on. I think you'll also find that using the least amount of gas in the suit is best. Use the wing for buoyancy adjustments. Also, the undies have a big impact with regard to weighting.
You're only gonna go for a feet first ascent if you've got way too much gas in the suit.
Just got back from Haigh, and vis was suprisingly good on both sides.

[MgicTwnger]

Right on. I think you'll also find that using the least amount of gas in the suit is best. Use the wing for buoyancy adjustments. Also, the undies have a big impact with regard to weighting.
You're only gonna go for a feet first ascent if you've got way too much gas in the suit.
Just got back from Haigh, and vis was suprisingly good on both sides.
And I do it the other way around: I use the suit for bouyancy, only put gas in the BC on the surface. Took trying both ways for a while until I found what worked best for me.
BTW, I just got back from Mermet. Lots of OW and other classes kicking up the goop there.

[theskull]

I've only witnessed one diver in danger of making a feet-first ascent, and it was his first dive in his drysuit and his weights were distributed wrong. It really is difficult to do, because even if you do get inverted (lots of fun, I do it all the time) if you are neutrally buoyant at the time, as you should be, there will not be an unplanned ascent involved!

Mastering the suit does indeed take many dives, as did mastering your BC when you were a newbie. Unplanned ascents should be rare, just as they were when you were new with your BC. Best bet is to make a lot of shallower dives first, again just as you did when you were new to your BC. Shallow dives are more forgiving if you do make unplanned ascents, and the buoyancy control is more difficult to fine tune on shallow dives, so you get better at it faster.

It's an adventure! Hope you enjoy yours at least half as much as I have mine.

theskull

[scububa]

Thanks for all the feedback. I thought a good idea would be to get use to it in the cavern. That way if I do invert I can still walk out :-D

Just kidding of course. I have been on a bunny dive session in a suit getting an idea of what it was like. I am looking forward to getting the skills down and expanding my diving opportunities. I am already kicking myself having missed the late fall and early spring. That's what I get for messing around and taking so long to pull the trigger, but heck it's a big investment.

I will be adding a BP/W to the equation, too, this summer. Again, I had an opportunity to dive one before I made my first BC purchase (Thanks, SLIM) and chose to go with a back inflate BC. I think it was a good choice for my first three years. But, now I must move on and glad to have so many potential opportunities to dive with you experienced folks.

Looking forward to doing it all year.

Jim