Foxfish
Contributor
Interested to hear ways to minimise stirring up the sand and silt when lifting off the bottom.
Lift off without the silt
- Thread starter Foxfish
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fisheater
Contributor
Inhale deeply. Wait for your positive buoyancy to bring you up into the water column. Stay horizontal. Gently frog kick away.
There are times, for example when shooting a subject that's on or very close to the bottom, where you may be very close or even settle briefly on a silt bottom. The key is NOT TO MOVE -- don't move your fins, don't move your hands. When you want to come up, just inhale and breathe with your lungs very full until you have risen off and away from the substrate. Stay horizontal and use a tiny modified flutter or frog kick to begin to move away.
You can actually do this quite easily, once you have the knack of floating motionless in horizontal trim.
You can actually do this quite easily, once you have the knack of floating motionless in horizontal trim.
Tigerman
Contributor
If you cant get the shot without lying down on the bottomn, change your attitude in the water or pass on the shot. Lying on the bottom has consequenses for the things living on or in it - things that you might not see is there...
I would never settle on coral or anywhere where there were delicate animals (including tiny hydroids and the like). I will go lightly belly-down on our pure silt bottoms in Puget Sound, if I have to; at my absolute maximum, I'm about six pounds negative, and I'm sure I never achieve that while diving in a horizontal position. We are talking at most one or two pounds of pressure on pure silt. I don't have a problem with it.
Play around with your trim weights until you find yourself nice and balanced. It will make it much easier to float without kicking and sculling as much.
Fine tune buoyancy with your breathing patterns and manage the gas in the BC.
Fine tune buoyancy with your breathing patterns and manage the gas in the BC.
DaleC
Contributor
You'd be surprised how many Ling Cod settle on the bottom. I spend most of my ocean dives chasing them and waving them off so they will hover instead but they ignore me and settle right back down.
Darned inconsiderate fish.
Darned inconsiderate fish.
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