Good Buoyancy Control - How ???

[Spectre]

Originally posted by mtdivegirl
proper weighting is when you have all your gear on...and your estimated weight...and you float at about eye level with the water with a breath in your lungs.

... and an empty BC.

And once you have that, you need to add enough weight to compensate for the weight of the air in your tank.

 

[herman]

....and to really get it correct, at the end of a dive with an almost empty tank..about 500 psi. This ensures that all the air is out out your wetsuit and BC(not including IN the BC). There is a debate as to wheather you do this at the surface or at 15 ft....I like the surface.

 

[Welshman]

Animanian

As Submariner says PPB is a course which PADI offer you as part of your AOW certification i.e 1 dive plus watch the video and read yp the section of the Text Book. I haven't checked the PADI site to see whther they offer it as a more thorough say 2 or 4 dive course.

It was certainly the most valuable course I have taken.

Herman is right on the need to do the weighting with 500 PSI left in the tank. If you do your weighting check with a full 2000 PSI tank then you will progressively become underweighted as your tank empties.

regards

 

[raxafarian]

Originally posted by Welshman
Animanian

I haven't checked the PADI site to see whther they offer it as a more thorough say 2 or 4 dive course.



regards

of course they do... that's more cash!

Seriously... it is it's own course like all padi specialties. If you do it as an elective for AOW, it's just counts towards the 'specialty'

 

[animian2002]

Originally posted by mtdivegirl
out of curiosity which agency did you do your OW with? I am in the process of doing mine through PADI. Proper weighting is something they cover in their text and class modules. I am new at all this but from what I can recall from that section off the top of my head..proper weighting is when you have all your gear on...and your estimated weight...and you float at about eye level with the water with a breath in your lungs.
Is that right? I think it is.. you are supposed to drop or add weight to hit that target.

I do agreed with u tt proper weighting is impt, but If I did not remembered wrongly the water condition also plays an impt part. When in the Pool session we can simply drop the weight, but when in the open sea, it is pure estimation, only thru (regular) dives and understand the water condition then can one really determine the correct weight.

Am I right ??? I'm not sure myself too. ..cos my last dive, My instructor actually told to drop one ...may be I'm swimming like seahorse

The reason why I ask was hoping tt I can find it out myself rather then always depending on others to remind me to drop or to add

 

[Welshman]

Animanian

I don't think the buoyancy of sea water is affected by its temperature (please correct me anyone if I'm wrong) but your weighting will be affected by your own weight and build, the thickness of the wetsuit you wear and your BC (some are neutrally buoyant, some negatively, some positively) and whether you use a stell or an alloy tank. You need to eliminate the variables - if you constantly change the BC you use or the wetsuit you wear you will find it difficult to work out what weight you need to carry.

The tables PADI publish are a useful guide to how much weight you should be carrying and from there it's trail and error till you find out what works for you.

regards

 

[SubMariner]

Welshman:

As Submariner says PPB is a course which PADI offer you as part of your AOW certification

Actually you can take PPB and just about ANY of the other Specialties on their own. (There are a couple that require AOW certification prior to taking them, but not many.)

Also, at any time you can do the first dive of most of the Specialties as an "Adventure Dive" that you can later use towards either the AOW or completing that Specialty at a later date.

Just wanted to let everyone know!

~SubMariner~

 

[Welshman]

Submariner

thanks for the clarification.

regards

 

[animian2002]

Originally posted by Welshman
Animanian

I don't think the buoyancy of sea water is affected by its temperature (please correct me anyone if I'm wrong) but your weighting will be affected by your own weight and build, the thickness of the wetsuit you wear and your BC (some are neutrally buoyant, some negatively, some positively) and whether you use a stell or an alloy tank. You need to eliminate the variables - if you constantly change the BC you use or the wetsuit you wear you will find it difficult to work out what weight you need to carry.

The tables PADI publish are a useful guide to how much weight you should be carrying and from there it's trail and error till you find out what works for you.

regards

the water condition I refer to is Fresh or salt water and not the temperature.. anyway thanks for advice on wat else can affect buoyancy

 

[finstotheleft]

This is what I did in my open water class. Mind you, I am brand new to this, and not an expert by far, but I picked this up on my own with 'free time' that the instructor gave us.

I got in the pool at the deep end (9ft). I let out all the air from my BC, exhaled all the air out of my lungs and took shallow breaths from there until I was laying on the bottom. Then I experemented. First I took deeper breaths a little at a time to see what difference my lung capacity made. Then I added little bits of air into my BC at a time. I did that until I was hoovering just off the bottom, horizontally. Then I started to swim up to the shallow end. As the bottom of the pool rose to the shallow end, I modified my breathing...breathing in a little more and exhaling a little less and so forth until I was going back and forth along the bottom of the pool floor without touching it.

Keep your hands crossed at your waist as you do this, so you're not prone to try to reach out and "swim".

Hope this helps you get started. It's working for me so far...just keep experementing until you get it!