Believe it or not, it was on a dive boat off of New Jersey.
Printable View
Believe it or not, it was on a dive boat off of New Jersey.
Well, come on down here and we'll do some BC-less diving ...
With a single tank I do it all the time. Your suit is should be kept at constant volume and your BC should be used to compensate for your buoyancy change as you consume gas. A single 80 has a shift on the order of 4 lbs. which most people can handle just by shifting their breathing cycle.Quote:
Originally Posted by acelockco
Dove without a BC from 1961 to 1989. Couldn't afford one. I was diving with a Cousteau team in the northern channel islands (CA) and was required to wear a BC on those dives. The darn thing kept autoinflating on me as I tried to descend. I told the dive master this and she said it couldn't be doing that. I demonstrated and she commented "Now what are we going to do?" My response? "Disconnect the darn thing and dive without it" which I proceeded to do. I didn't buy a BC of my own until the mid 90's, although now I doubt I would dive without one.
Dr. Bill, when I was working on the Sea Otter special we didn't use no stinkin' BCs.
Anyway ... if you are diving dry the only purpose for a BC is to float your breathing gas and/or provide surface support in a crisis. If you are diving a single, rather neutral tank that reason disappears and if you don't need crisis support, then a BC becomes on of those things that you really don't need.
They used to get in the way when bug hunting! Didn't even have one the first year I was diving! Couldn't afford one!
http://twotankedproductions.com/imag...-5_lobster.jpg
I never used to dive with a BC with my drysuit till I punctured by drysuit at the Boilers at San Nicholas on a solo dive with the boat 1/2 mile away as nobody else was stupid enough to want to descend into the Boilers due to the surge...of course, when I dropped down into each depression there were no legendary lobsters to be found, and as luck would have it, the weather turned REALLY nasty, the swells were in excess of 20 feet and carrying me at breakneck speed to a sure demise on the rocks where the swells were crashing over in the open ocean. With the leak in the suit, my air going from 500 psi to 100 psi from repeatedly adding air to my suit to struggle to stay at the surface & breathe surface air while swimming perpendicular to the swells taking me towards the crashing rocks faster than I could swim, I almost got my rear handed to me on a platter, so off the weight belt came after 15 minutes of futility, and a minute later the captain of the Peace in the inflatable boat plucked me from the jaws of defeat.
The moral of the story? Since then I always dive with a BC.
Thats a good story of what not to do! I will be on the Peace in nine days! Should I ask him if you were screaming for rescue like a? Well you get the picture! LOL glade you made it!;)
Lol, Papa, it's hard to scream when you are swallowing salt water.... ;)
Actually it wasn't the current Captain, it was the previous owner. Had I been able to see him in the gloomy gray darkness coming towards me, I could have held off another minute from dropping my $50 weight belt....
I used to dive with a back mounted wing, and one of the things really cool about back wings is I used to crawl out of it when done diving, fill up the BC all the way, climb partially up onto it like a kickboard, and just leisurely kick away while enjoying the scenery.
I have ridden mine like a hobby horse in places like Cozumel waiting to be picked up! ;) With an al80 its even more buoyant! Almost empty of course!:)