Buoyancy control

[TennisCoach]

Hello Guys,

Ok yesterday I had a pool session and we were doing the basic stuff witht he mask and the reg plus we were taking our equipment of and putting it back on under water. Now my instructor was suspended horizontally about 3 to 4 feet from the bottom of the pool. and he will not move from there even when he was helping us to stay down on the floor of the pool. I know it takes practice but there has to be a secret beside time and practice. I was able to float but I was not as steady as he was and also I was not able to get horizontal. I also noticed that his bc is a zeagle that look like a wing design. I do not know if that has something to do with it or. can someone help me with that.

Thank you
CC

 

[FishOutUvH2O]

. . . there has to be a secret beside time and practice.

Proper weighting. If you're comparing yourself to your instructor, you've probably set the bar just a little to high at the moment. I'm glad you've got one that is giving you a great example to learn from, but it really is just practice and proper weighting. Assuming you have a properly fitting BC.

 

[jpcpat]

It may seem like magic, but it's really just practice. Your instructor has spent hundreds or thousands of hours hovering in the gear he had on.

I also dive a Zeagle Ranger and I think it's the best BCD made, for a bunch of reasons. The wing style of the Ranger is my preference, too. It won't make you a better diver, though. I use a jacket style BCD in the pool, just like my students, and my bouyancy control is just as good. Adjusting to new gear takes very little time if you have some good experience.

Here's how to get your bouyancy control the best it can be:

1) Practice it on EVERY dive til it's automatic. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. Challenge yourself a bit. How close to the bottom can you stay without touching? When you stop moving, do you need to adjust bouyancy to maintain depth?

2) Repeat step 1 as needed.

 

[dkktsunami]

Plate and wing is probably helpful for horizontal trim. Achieving this position is more than having the proper amount of weight, it is also about the placement of the weight. If your feet are dragging then the weight needs to be moved higher up your body and this is where the wing/plate allows for easier adjustment. Begin with moving the tank up, then moving weights off of the weight belt (assuming feet are sinking) and into trim pockets (on bc or added to the tank straps). The idea here is to get the center of buoyancy over the center of gravity with the result being a level position in the water. It takes practice, generally lots of practice ...... good luck.

 

[miketrance84]

It is just practice but, you have to know what to practice. The thing that helps me is remembering your lungs are like a second BC. Set your self neutrally bouyant at the particular depth your at. Then its all breath control. Every time you take a breath, assuming your neutral to start with, your becoming slighly positive. Everytime you exhale completely you become negative and sink.
This is a very useful skill to master and the more you practice it the better you will be able to self correct using your breathing. Taking deep breaths and breathing slowly will help a great deal. I am still no where near perfect I'm sure that will take many years and hundereds of dives. I can function well enough to complete dives. Don't get discouraged be mindful and dive alot after being certified.

 

[egp]

As mentioned, learn breath control to use your lungs for buoyancy control.

It helps a lot if you have the proper weight (most divers are overweighted). In the summer without exposure suit, I often dive without a weight belt.

Check your weight properly, ideally with a nearly empty tank, because the air in the tank weighs a few pounds and you want to be able to do the safety stop without
fighting to stay down. Step-1: At the surface, hold a normal breath and empty all the air from your BC. You should be floating at mid-eye height. Now, for Step-2, exhale and you should start to sink slowly. Be careful not to kick your fins (I suggest crossing your legs), and be sure to exhale completely. If you float with a breath and sink without, you are properly weighted.

When you have the right amount of weight for your current gear and exposure suit, you will have very little air in your BC.
That has the benefit that your buoyancy doesn't decrease when you descend and doesn't increase as you ascend.
Instead, you'll rise slightly every time you inhale and descend slightly every time you exhale. Your breath
then becomes the fine tuning for depth. PADI's Peak Performance Buoyancy course is a great way to learn the techniques and practice, and every dive should be practice.
It is especially valuable for photographers and videographers who need to remain steady underwater.


Once you get your weight right, practice using just your breath to control depth.

 

[dkktsunami]

It is possible to have good buoyancy (neutral in the water), but terrible trim. Buoyancy and trim are two different matters - one deals with the proper amount of weight, the other with the placement of that weight.

 

[don Francisco]

Hovering like your intructor did has less to do with equipment nad more to do with skill honed with lots of practice. It's like doing woodwork or playing golf. You need the basic knowledge, good tools, but the rest is practice, practice, practice.

To get on the right path, you need correct weighting for good bouyancy, correct placement of weights for good trim, and good body and breathing control to hold it all together.

Take your time and work on your bouynacy until it's spot on, then fine tune the placement of your weights until you can hover in any position without any movement. Finally learn how to use your breathing to make the final adjustments, and/or compensate for changes.

It isn't ultra difficult, it just takes patience and dedication.

 

[Noboundaries]

It may seem like magic, but it's really just practice.

Challenge yourself a bit. How close to the bottom can you stay without touching?

My wife and I took our AOW class at Lake Tahoe after our 5th OW dive. Our AOW was all shore diving. I thought our buoyancy control was pretty good but the instructor spent more time getting us to focus on our buoyancy control than anything else during each the five dives. At the end of every dive, we'd head toward shore, swimming inches from the bottom but not touching as the water gradually got shallower. By doing so, you get a real feel for the change in buoyancy and how to control it using your dumps.

The first swim toward shore was a total bust and we surfaced in water about six to eight feet deep. The next time we got closer to shore. We improved on every dive.

The biggest laugh of the weekend was on our last dive. My wife and I, an assistant instructor, and the instructor all swam along the bottom until we ran out of water. We all simultaneously stood up in less than three feet of water. The public beach in July was packed with people as we emerged from the 57 degree water, well insulated head to toe in black. A five year-old boy playing just feet away at the edge of the water jumped up, mouth agape, eyes wide. Then he said in an amazed voice as we started removing our fins, "Are you guys commandos?!" I'm still laughing.

Buoyancy control, the first thing you need to learn once you complete OW.

 

[boulderjohn]

Everything you have heard so far is very good--perhaps I can put it together for you a little.

Your instructor has proper trim, meaning that his weighting is positioned so that he does not have to work very much at all to maintain his horizontal position. He has roughly the right amount of air in his BCD for the depth at which he is hovering. He does not have to be exact in this because he is monitoring his buoyancy and making adjustments in his breathing to fine tune that buoyancy. If he is slightly heavy, he will keep a little more air in his lungs as he breathes. If he is sinking a tad, his next inhalation will be deeper and will bring him up, but as he does go up, he will anticipate a buoyancy change and begin to exhale appropriately.

Here's where the benefit of practice comes in: he doesn't have to think about it. Monitoring the buoyancy and making the appropriate changes to his breathing has become a reflex because he has done it so much.

You do not have that reflex, but you can begin to work on it.

When you are diving, pay careful attention to what is happening to you. Stop all motion, breathe normally, and see what happens. Most beginners will sink when they do that. Put a little air in your BCD and try again. Try to hover periodically during your dives over and over and over again.

When you are in such a hover, see if you can inhale more deeply than you exhale to make yourself go up in the water column a few feet, then control your breathing to see if you can stay there. Then exhale more than you inhale to see if you can drop down a ways, and then use your breathing to hold it again.

If you are diving over a large break in the coral and want to go down to see if there are any lobsters under those ledges, don't invert and kick down. Try to do it by simply exhaling and sinking. Come to a stop just over the sand and hold that position through your breathing while you are looking around, then go back up via your breathing again, rising like a Harrier jet our of the hole.

Every safety stop is a chance to practice. You've got nothing else to do for three minutes, after all. See if you can hold yourself at 15 feet using nothing but your breathing.