Okay I gotta ask... how much weight on the belt does it take to make you sink?
It depends on a lot of things: the particular diver (if she is small like me or huge like Bobby, for example), the kind of exposure suit (since wetsuits make you float), and the type of water (since salt water is denser and makes a person far more buoyant). Right now, weighing 140 lb/64 kg and wearing a wetsuit top in fresh water, I wear 10 lb/4.5 kg of weight on my weight belt.
And I was wondering how long a body can handle being under water?
That depends on the depth because of the pressure. At high depths/pressures, nitrogen levels in the blood begin to increase and can be dangerous if too long is spent at those depths. So if I am diving to 100 ft/30 m and you are staying relatively shallow at 35 ft/11 m, you can stand to stay under much longer than me (roughly three times as long, iirc).
If you stay shallow, as in diving in a swimming pool (as we've been doing), you can stay under until you run out of air! :) (Which varies from person to person. I probably could have stayed under about two hours on Sunday, but we all come up when one person runs low on air. Women tend to use air much slower so we get the short end of the stick when diving with men! :^P)
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rosecarmine
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-21 02:15 am (UTC)It depends on a lot of things: the particular diver (if she is small like me or huge like Bobby, for example), the kind of exposure suit (since wetsuits make you float), and the type of water (since salt water is denser and makes a person far more buoyant). Right now, weighing 140 lb/64 kg and wearing a wetsuit top in fresh water, I wear 10 lb/4.5 kg of weight on my weight belt.
And I was wondering how long a body can handle being under water?
That depends on the depth because of the pressure. At high depths/pressures, nitrogen levels in the blood begin to increase and can be dangerous if too long is spent at those depths. So if I am diving to 100 ft/30 m and you are staying relatively shallow at 35 ft/11 m, you can stand to stay under much longer than me (roughly three times as long, iirc).
If you stay shallow, as in diving in a swimming pool (as we've been doing), you can stay under until you run out of air! :) (Which varies from person to person. I probably could have stayed under about two hours on Sunday, but we all come up when one person runs low on air. Women tend to use air much slower so we get the short end of the stick when diving with men! :^P)