Almost Certified then What's next

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djpeteski

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Location
Orlando, FL
# of dives
The wife and I took the open Water Cert (PADI) this weekend and last. Last weekend was the pool sessions which were a hot mess (too many people, way to hot to wear a wet suit, and poor instruction). This weekend were supposed to be the check dives that consisted of a lake day and a sea day (drift diving in Palm Bay, FL).

The lake dives went pretty good. I feel my descent is way to rapid and I get so disoriented. A few times I found myself ascending for seemingly no reason. Like I was 20-25 ft down, then next thing I know my head is crowing the surface. I seem to be on the bottom or on the top, not much in between. Also I use a lot of air compared to my probable diving partner (wife) After the first two dives, I had 300 lbs of air, she had well over 1000.

One trick I used was to always fill my bcd from my lungs rather then using the inflation button. That helped some.

The ocean dives were called because of weather. The only skills we have left to demonstrate is inflating the safety sausage and telling correspondingly bad and dirty jokes. This will be rescheduled this coming weekend (probably).

We are scheduled for a cruise in December and plan on doing a two tank dive in St. Johns. However, we would really like to do at least one dive between now and then with people that are more experienced (and understanding). We are both teachers at heart (with my wife having a masters in education), and would like to get with someone who teaches well.

One of the things that was troubling, is the lead instructor was pushing us to take more certifications when we are not even comfortable with the skills we are/were supposed to be learning. I feel like there is a lot of "we don't know what we don't know".

So in summary:

- How does one keep orientation during descent?
- Any way to keep from popping up 20 feet?
- How does one use less air?
- What are some good dive trips, from the central Florida area, where we might get some instruction or have some really good dive guides?
 
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Look at your dive buddy during descent and keep close to them. This is probably the most likely point where something will go wrong, like they forgot to connect their BCD line (and both you and they failed to check it...) or someone has ear problems. If you want to check your depth bring the depth gauge up into your line of sight as you look at your buddy.

Use very short bursts of air into your BCD. Verify your weighting, ensure you are not finning during that process. Take action when you start to change depth, let out a little air as soon as you notice you are not at the depth of your buddy. (Who you should be keeping an eye on.) Exhaling deeply and breathing shallow will often work if it's just a foot or so, but if you don't start back down in a few seconds let out some air from your BCD (don't swim around for long breathing shallow - it's just part of a short-term depth correction). The farther you go before acting the more aggressive you need to be. Going head down and kicking like mad while you dump the air in your BCD via the rear dump often works when it's getting bad. (The same is true of sinking, add a little early before you have to add a lot late.)

Dive more. As you get more comfortable you will use less gas. Slow down. In addition, poor technique (like bicycle kicking) is not very effective, so you burn more air moving. I don't know how you were taught, so I can't help you much. But working with a different instructor can help. Find one that looks in the water like the diver you want to be.
 
You could ask your instructor to work on your buoyancy control with you. After all you paid for the education.

Personally I think you need to get that dialed in before you start booking dive charters that are months away. Unintentionally corking to the surface is a problem for a number of reasons, as I'm sure you know. If you have access to friends with gear (or buy your own) and a pool you can really work on this. Ultimately the more you dive, the better you'll get. You may be overweighted and consequently having to put too much air in your BC. This needs to rectified.

As far as the gas consumption discrepancy. Make sure your buddy isn't holding their breathe or skip breathing. And you may find it better to match tank sizes with your consumption rates. For example, you dive larger volume tanks or your buddy dive smaller volume tanks (although I'd rather my buddy have plenty of gas for me :wink: ) or maybe a combination of both.

Good luck, let us know how things progress.
 
Yeah what those guys said. I would assume your basic kicking is OK (ei. not "bicycle"). Biggest thing IMO is doing a proper weight check. Then as mentioned, short bursts of air in/out of the BCD. The unintentional "ups and downs" will disappear in a relatively short time. I was up & down on my OW checkout dives, being not used to proper inflator (LPI) technique and also overweight, I think. Regular diving is paramount--try to do some benign shallow shore diving (maybe once a week?). Buoyancy is harder to get right the closer you are to the surface. Maybe even try to swim (or hover) 3 feet below the surface. I still do that sometimes at the end of a dive. I think it was well before my 15th-20th dive that my buoyancy was pretty darn good. At one point I stopped to look at something and realized I was just hovering without effort. Fine tuning buoyancy with lungs will then come into play. When you do go deeper--like 60' on a charter--you will find buoyancy is even easier at depth since the pressure change decreases the deeper you go.
 
No matter what you do for the rest of your diving career your wife will use less air than you do so get used to it..:D
Yep, bane of my life. "Why are we going up? Ive got plenty of gas...you want to use mine?"
 
No matter what you do for the rest of your diving career your wife will use less air than you do so get used to it..:D
And no matter how good your consumption is you will find someone who is better.
 
From the Orlando area, the answer is simple. I'm one of the founders of the Vero Beach Scuba Club. come visit us on Facebook. we have a lot of members in your area. we often dive at the Blue Heron Bridge which is a great area to practice and get comfortable. Our divemaster members and some of our instructors would be more than happy to give you pointers and help you out.
 
use one or two puffs of air then breathe normally, if you are sinking still try puff again then breathe normally if you start to rise just vent a bit not too much, after every puff/vent stop and breathe normally for a few seconds or so and see whats happening with your buoyancy. remember one breathe/exhale can make you rise/sink 10ft. or so so take it slow once you begin to rise start to exhale once you get the hang of it you will get that ahh hah moment and life is better. also if you can sink like a rock as you first go under you are way over weighted, drop some till you have to exhale fully to sink, then breathe in half breathes till you are at depth.
 
One thing that I think helps newer divers is just to slow down. Take your time with everything. From gear set up, to buoyancy adjustments, nothing needs to be rushed. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
 
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