Before I suddenly had a burst of sanity and gave it up, I was heavily into deep diving with rebreathers. Dehydration is a prime factor in increasing chances of decompression sickness so divers try to get plenty of fluids before a serious dive. This combined with cold water, suit squeeze from the pressure and a drysuit liner you want to stay dry 'cause you've got an hour or more of deco time causes an obvious problem... The solution we use is called (naturally) the "P-Valve". It's usually a pressure balanced one-way valve that is installed into the thigh of your drysuit. A small hose then runs from the valve to your, your, uhhh, exit point. It is secured there via an external catheter - sort of a condom with a hole in the end that attaches to the hose. So when you've gotta go, you just let 'er rip. Three key points: 1) Make sure that hose doesn't kink and cause a peeplosion. 2) Double check that you actually connect the hose to the catheter. Every diver I know has made this mistake and noe found out until it was too late... 3) Due to the glue on the catheter, it goes on a lot easier than it comes off... I once told George Gronseth of Deep Trouble fame (engineer by education) about the P-Valve. You could literally see the wheels between his ears turning as he pondered how to adopt this to expedition kayaking. ;-> Here's a link with a picture for the interested few: http://www.halcyon.net/exposure/discharge.shtml And you probably thought I was making this up, Thomas *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Feb 11 2002 - 19:29:13 PST
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