Buoyancy Question...

[SCUBAKristey]

OK y'all! I'm calling on experienced divers out there to help me out with some basics. Before I hit my fantastic dive vacation destination, I would LOVE to work on my bouyancy skills here in my local lake. Any suggestions on how to do this? The "hovering" we were taught in class was OK, but how many times am I going to be looking at something with my legs crossed under me?

I very well may take a bouyancy class before I go next month, as I feel I need the most work with this. (Can I brag that my air consumption for a newbie is WONDERFUL? But I know that better bouyancy will even help me with that!)

Anyway, I DO NOT want to be one of those divers who swim along like they're on a rollercoaster from going up and down so much. ANY tricks of the trade I can practice will be greatly appreciated!


Kristey

 

[O-ring]

The "hovering" we were taught in class was OK, but how many times am I going to be looking at something with my legs crossed under me?

I would practice hovering in a horizontal position since that is how you will be moving through the water. Practice everything you know in a horizontal position and you will get used to maintaining the optimum body positioning underwater. Make sure your weighting is correct and you are not constantly adding/dumping air from your BC to adjust your buoyancy. You should be able to descent by venting the air from your BC at the surface and should not have to add any until you get down a bit and your suit compresses and loses some of its buoyancy. You should be able to adjust your breathing (but not holding) depth (shallow, deep, etc.) to make minute adjustments in your buoyancy. The best way to perfect buoyancy is to dive, dive, dive...

Another thing that will help your SAC (air consumption) will be streamlining yourself and your gear as much as possible by eliminating dangling consoles, octos, etc. A balanced equipment configuration also eases buoyancy and trim/streamlining. Ideally, IMHO, you want some weight on your bc/backplate and some weight on your belt. If you are concerned about your air consumption (aren't we all...) you can calculate your SAC and then try changes in your diving practices and/or gear and see how they affect your SAC. If you don't like math, I have a little application that calculates SAC that I could email you if you want (too big to post on board).

 

[jbd]

I'll add what I do. My weighting is such that with a full tank( Al 80) and no air in my BC and holding a little more than normal breath of air, my eyes a just at or slightly below water level. This is sometimes referred to as frog eyes. To descend all I have to do is exhale completely. The initial descent is slow which allows plenty of time to equalize my ears and I ussually don't have to add air to the BC until I'm several feet under. Whe I do add air it is in very,very short bursts. I can also stop my descent by taking a really deep breath.

Practicing hovering horizontal(like O-ring suggested) is the best way to go.

Really good bouyancy control helps alot with air consumption because you end up pumping less into the BC which means you can use it for breathing.

Also you can do what one student I was working with does while working on hovering horizontal. She orally inflates the BC with small puffs of air instead of using the power inflator.

Hope this is of some help.

 

[JamesK]

It all really comes down to practice. Lie O-Ring said, do everything in a horizontal position. Bend your knees so your lower legs are point straight up and just try to stay in one place. Adjust your weight so that when you stop, you stay horizontal. Practice all of your skills this way. Even do your safety stop this way.

 

[art.chick]

Many OW students are overweighted so that the instructor knows u will stay put on the bottom during the checkout. As previously mentioned, there is a way to tell if your weight is idea. Try to use a couple pounds less & see what happens. We had an exercise in AOW that was meant to help us check our resting air consumption, but it helps with this too:

Lie on the bottom (tell your buddy u will be doing this at 30' for 5 min before the dive), hold onto rocks if u need to. Breathe as relaxed as u can, & feel if u r ready to sail up (too light), floating but not rising (good), or lying like a rock as if you need to inflate just to get off the bottom (too heavy).

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by art.chick
Lie on the bottom (tell your buddy u will be doing this at 30' for 5 min before the dive), hold onto rocks if u need to. Breathe as relaxed as u can, & feel if u r ready to sail up (too light), floating but not rising (good), or lying like a rock as if you need to inflate just to get off the bottom (too heavy).

 

[SCUBAKristey]

Good advice y'all! I will definitely try these out next time I'm at the lake. (If I can talk FishKiller into letting me waste a few mins. of dive time with this!)


Kristey

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by SCUBAKristey
(If I can talk FishKiller into letting me waste a few mins. of dive time with this!)

Hi Kristey,

Yesterday at the end of a 115 fsw max depth/ 62 TBT dive (during which we incured no deco obligation by carefully controlling our profile)....

I practiced maintaining a free floating postion at 10 fsw in both current and wave action. I was able to maintain 10 fsw with only the occassional variation +/- one foot for 17 minutes.

This was not wasted time. I need to keep practicing... the +/- one foot happened 7 times according to my Stinger... I have got to get that number down.

Moral of the story... take time at the end of each dive to practice holding a stop... this is never wasted time.

 

[VTWarrenG]

Yeah, Pug, we all know that one foot is gonna totally trash your deco schedule.

- Warren

 

[O-ring]

How much fin movement do you have while holding these stops? Are you moving around in a circle type of thing, gradually moving forward, or really not moving at all/hovering?

I am finding it somewhat hard to just "hover" and not move my fins at all...but when I move my fins some, they create some forward movement....any words of wisdom?