This was my first time back in the water since breaking my leg and my ankle last year. B and I drove down to Vobster the evening before and stayed in our usual place, the Oakhill Inn. I can report that I can basically dive again, but the lack of mobility in my right ankle seems to have slowed down my frog kick somewhat. We got in two leisurely dives:

I have put on about a stone in weight with my forced few months of inactivity, and that is on top of thinking before that I could stand to lose a stone The lack of fitness really shows in the SAC, my usual benchmark is 20ℓ/min

I made a lot of kit changes too, all the changes I had planned to make over the winter, in one go. Most of these come out of ART but also in preparation for Fundies next month.

• Switched my neoprene drysuit for a membrane, a Fourth Element Argonaut with silicone neck and wrists, neoprene socks and drygloves.
• As a consequence of that, switched my size 10 Northern Diver combat rockboots for size 11 Hollis rockboots‡. These are paradoxically bigger on the inside but smaller on the outside, so I dropped my Hollis F1 fins from 2XL to XL‡ which fit perfectly. They also give less support but more mobility for the ankle.
• As a further consequence of that, wore my O3 PBB Extreme undersuit instead of the PBB+ I would wear under neoprene in these conditions. On the first dive I was perfectly OK but on the second, I was starting to feel the cold.
• Switched my 6mm, 5.1Kg Agir backplate for a 3mm 2.2Kg by Light Monkey.

On ART with the neoprene suit, twinset and 6mm backplate I felt overweighted however with the membrane suit and the 3mm backplate (and no additional weights) I definitely felt underweighted, the undersuit presumably making all of the difference. So I can assume that my buoyancy works out the same for an equivalent level of thermal protection, which means I will go back to the 6mm (remains to be seen how this works out for traveling). OR in warmer water, with the lighter undersuit, the 3mm backplate might be perfect, hmm. There is plenty of flexibility in the membrane suit compared to the neoprene, but I need to re-learn the finer points of buoyancy control in it. The drygloves are very nice, but fiddly to get on and off, and I am wondering how much I dare trim off the neck seal to get it perfect. It’s quick change, and I have a spare, in case! All in all it was a successful mission and infinitely better than showing up to Fundies in completely unfamiliar kit. But there is still a long way to go before I am happy.

†Twinset
‡Bought at the Vobster shop on the day.