On Mon, 14 Oct 2002 21:58:51 -0500, Chuck <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>From what I was taught, and my experience practicing rescues in really
>cold water in dry suits, it is not that much different.  You use the
>BCD to lift them.  it is too hard to hold them, work the chest valve
>and find a way to dump air from the suit if you need to do so.  Dump
>the weights (carefully - they may start up just from that and you
>have to be read for it) then use the BCD to get lift. If it is not a
>diver in trouble but only practice and you flood their suit with cold
>water trying to get the air out, you are going to have one really
>pissed victim on your hands.

So I could accidentally flood them in the process compounding things even
futher. Yikes!

With some divers wearing their weightbelt under the crotch strap of their
plate & wings setup would have to ensure it dropped away without snagging.

They started up a drysuit course here in Perth last year but when I rang I
found out the smallest suit was a large .. they were only catering for the
men folk. I could just imagine the length the legs would have been on me &
how easily the air could shift in that direction popping off my fins due to
the excess size of the suit. A Good Year blimp I do not wanna be so looks
like I will have to seriously start saving for a custom fitted suit so I
can dive all year round.

Mates of mine are still diving every Saturday or Sunday night in the Swan
River catching prawns in their 7mil wetsuits. But the current temperature
has dropped down to 15 degrees celcius of late so I am certainly
considering the purchase of a drysuit so I can join them sometime in the
future during the prawn and blue manna crab runs.
Viv