How to save air consumption getting past heavy surge conditions

[DM_cappie]

Is this a single incident that your talking about, or have you noticed that on multiple occasions this is happening?
The reason I ask is if this happened just once then by trying to keep up with a dive buddy who is swimming for a gold medal is probably the biggest factor. Swimming is swimming whether your on the surface or underwater, if you push to go faster all you do is waste energy and therefore air. talk to your buddy a little and explain to him that you need to be the one setting the pace on the swim out and see if that helps your air consumption.

 

[freewillie]

In addition to conserving air during entry, one quirk of beach diving is you generally have modest surface swim to reach the drop down point. I noticed that the harder I kicked out to the drop down point the worse my air consumption at depth. Either kick out at a more leisurely pace and/or wait few minutes at the surface to catch your breath. Even if your buddy is an Olympic athelete since you should be sticking together during entry/exit (you are keeping close to your buddy during these times!) they would have to slow down to match your pace. Call me a sloth, but what's the hurry diving? Drives me nuts when other divers treat it like the Indy 500. You miss all the beauty of the dive racing around as if your swimming like a bat out of hell. Swimming calmly and slowly will also help your air consumption.

 

[Sir Captain]

Ben, I started just like you in Monterey (however two years ago). I completely agree with all of the above. I can tell you first hand the huge amounts of experience you're gaining by starting in Monterey. After 10 dives in Monterey (including cert dives) my wife and I went to the Great Barrier Reef and we both felt as though we could hang with the people who had been on 75-100 dives in warm water benign environments.

As for your specific dive, when you do the Metridium Field, a different way to dive it is like this. Find the pipe that takes you out there, drop down and pull your body with your hands. This worked quite well for me.

Like others said, just take your time and don't feel that you have to be rushed. I was diving Point Lobos once, had a hell of a kelp crawl, was all out of breath but didn't want to hold up my dive buddy so we dropped down and took off. I was still so out of breath that I burned through my air way faster than i should have. if i had told him to just hang on the surface for another minute or two, we could have been under for at least another five-ten. it's all about being relaxed.

enjoy Monterey...I truly miss the diving there everyday!

 

[3D diver]

Hi Ben,

Been keeping an eye on your NorCal posts as a potential buddy.

The surf at the breakwater/metridiums is rarely high enough to warrant a reg-in-mouth entry & if it is you really don't want to be there anyway.

As for the surface kick I find it more efficient to be on my back with nothing in my mouth (as mentioned above) or on my side with a snorkel. I turn belly down only to have a look around.

My strategy for the metridiums is to stay on the surface till it gets hard to follow the pipe then dive. Then you can save energy by pulling yourself hand-over-hand along the pipe instead of, or in addition to, kicking.

Having to rush to keep up with a buddy is a recipe for excess air usage so that should be addressed...politely. <G>

Wayne


P.S. D'oh! Just read the post above mine! What he said.

 

[ktkt]

Seriously, you guys pull yourselves along the pipe? I have only been to the Metridiums a couple times and only in very calm conditions, and a leisurely swim at depth, checking out the wildlife along the way, seemed just fine to me.

That said, swimming in heavy surge is a very funny thing. For me, the trick is to just keep a nice easy, roughly constant pace and remember that it's okay that you're sometimes moving a bit backwards and sometimes flying ahead. Overall, it balances out, and your net pace is dictated basically by your swimming.

When I first went diving in the ocean, I didn't really know the difference between surge and current, and I know I made some silly statements about annoying "current" that left some DM's scratching their heads. Because I didn't understand the surge, it didn't click that it was periodic, and I was constantly fighting it because I didn't like being pushed around. It really stressed me out. I'm sure once you get more experience with surge, you'll be more comfortable and able to just go with the flow. I was very pleased to discover on my last couple trips that surge doesn't phase me at all anymore (try swimming perpendicular to the surge sometime, so that you're kind of a pendulum in the water, moving side to side - super fun!), and even a mild current doesn't affect my SAC much.

Edit: as many others already mentioned, you probably only want to be diving at the Breakwater if things are calm enough that you don't really NEED your reg in for entries and exits. As a matter of habit, I use mine while walking into the water, until a little more than waist-deep, and also for walking back out again. But a snorkel should be totally fine for the surface swim, or swimming on your back if you prefer. (Personally, I like the snorkeling -- sometimes you see fun stuff, and it's easier to navigate the kelp when you can see it.)

PPS: If you want to dive sometime, I like to take things SUPER slow, and I'd be up for carpooling to Monterey

 

[3D diver]

Seriously, you guys pull yourselves along the pipe? I have only been to the Metridiums a couple times and only in very calm conditions, and a leisurely swim at depth, checking out the wildlife along the way, seemed just fine to me.

Not exclusively, of course, but yeah it takes a lot less energy to pull your self along with direct contact to the pipe than kicking---just good physics. Finning ain't very efficient and thighs can burn up a lot of oxygen.

 

[nimoh]

One thing I like to do is what freewillie suggested earlier, I keep the reg in my mouth, but when water is not crashing onto my face, I widen my mouth a bit to break the seal on the mouthpiece to take a breath, and just breathe in outside air. If I swim under a wave, I will generally hold my breath until I can take another surface breath. I will on occasion, need to breathe from the reg, and I keep it in my mouth for just that reason, but try to minimize the breaths I take off of it.

Another option is to carry a small stage bottle to breathe while going through the surge so as to not use up your main supply before the dive.

 

[3D diver]

I did a lot more true surf entries when I lived & dove in San Diego than I've ever done in Monterey. (>90% shore dives in both locals)

Monestary asside, I don't recall many occasions where keeping the reg in the mouth on the surface was really necessary up here.

My recollection from my San Diego days was snorkeling under big waves with one hand on my mask and another holding onto the regulator to keep it from free flowing---but that was a long time ago.