BonaireTalk Discussion Group
Diving Bonaire: Toucan Diving - Hard of Soft Weights?
Bonaire Talk: Diving Bonaire: Archives: Archives 1999-2005: Archives - 2002-05-24 to 2002-11-25: Toucan Diving - Hard of Soft Weights?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By El Caringo on Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 7:50 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Can anyone tell me weather Toucan provides hard or soft, (shot), weights?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Tom Erhard on Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 9:09 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I believe all their weights are the hard weights.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ida Christie on Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 4:53 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

They have now proven that the soft weights causes damage to the environment.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Daniel Senie on Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 5:26 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Am curious who "they" are and how the damage manifests itself. For caribbean diving hard weights are not much issue for us (we dive weight integrated) though we do bring our leg weights, which are filled with lead shot.

For diving in New England, soft weights are really essential for fitting in the metric ton of lead into our BCs.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Randy Patka on Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 5:40 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi El Caringo,

Like Daniel I dive the cold wet stuff, (Chicago area) and those soft bags hurt a lot less when you drop them on your toes too.

Seriously, I use the cast weights the local dive ops provide which fit into my W/I BC just fine (Seaquest Balance) but I also bring along a pair of 1# soft weights to do final trim adjustments on the island. Sometimes 2# is all you need to make the difference and avoid being overweighted or out of trim and they don't generally have 1# cast available anywhere.

Dive Safely

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ida Christie on Friday, September 13, 2002 - 11:22 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I was told by a dive instructor that the lead shots eventually work their way out, and harm the coral. His dive shop does not sell them anymore.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cecil Berry on Friday, September 13, 2002 - 3:46 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Dan, it's probably the same reason as no lead sinkers for the fishermen. It's not that the lead dissolves, it has to do with birds eating the shot. They eat rocks to help digest and if they injest just one lead shot it kills them. The proof for me was two years ago they did autopsies on 7 Loons in New Hampshire, 3 died of lead poisoning. My feeling would be as long as there's no chance of the shot leaking out, it should be fine.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Daniel Senie on Monday, September 16, 2002 - 8:25 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

That's what I suspected. In rental use, soft weights do get pretty abused. I've seen this in a few places. If in good condition, however, they should pose no more threat than hard weights.

Soft weights sometimes give the appearance of giving off more junk in your rinse tank, but this seems to be due to graphite on the shot that washes off eventually.

Faith and I live along a large piece of conservation land where some hunting is allowed. Lead shot is not permitted for hunting waterfoul because of the issue of them eating the shot. Of course hunters purposely don't keep the shot contained in mesh bags...

I doubt the lead shot beads themselves hurt the coral. The more likely scenario if they do get out is fish eating them and getting poisoned.

Would like pointers to scientific evidence on the subject, though.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Cecil Berry on Monday, September 16, 2002 - 4:58 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Dan, I went to Yahoo and searched for "Lead Shot Poisoning" and got a slew of hits. Some lead to studies all over the place listing poisonings. Most talked about lead shot from guns as the leading problem.

 


Visit: The Bonaire WebCams - Current Bonaire images and weather!
The Bonaire Insider - the latest tourism news about Bonaire
The Bonaire Information Site, InfoBonaire
Search Bonaire - Search top Bonaire Web sites


Topics Last Day Last Week Tree View    Getting Started Formatting Troubleshooting    New Messages Keyword Search Contact Moderators Edit Profile Administration