how to deep dive.

[flofish94]

Thanks everyone for all the great advice. I'll take it slowly, learn from others and will dive at my comfortable depth for a while before attempting any deep dive. I was in Cozumel this past Aug. and did many shallow dives around 40'-60' depth. When we descend we alway see the bottom, which make me feel more comfortable. I usually inflate my BCD when I almost hit the bottom to gain and control my buoyancy there but never actually hard hit the bottom. This caused me to post this thread. I was on a boat for a 2 tanks dive one morning, the 1st dive, which is usually a deep dive they planned to dive to around 90' at Punta Sur. I have no idea how deep Punta Sur is but I guess it can be real deep, deeper than 90'... I'm not ready so I decided to stay back and wait on the boat. The sea was rough that morning. I sat on the boat for 1 hr, got seasick and felt really bad to the point that I almost puke. It was a terrible experience, when everyone was back on the boat we did the 2nd dive at Columbia shallow, it was great at around 40'-60' depth. I never wanted to wait on a boat in rough sea again after that, you felt like throwing up and just want to abort the trip and get back to shore. I think it is better to dive than sitting on the boat but the 1st dive usually is a deep dive so I'm stuck and want to know how to deep dive. But you guys are right. I'll dive with the instructor next time on a few deep dive and go from there.
Thanks, I'd appreciated all the comments and advice from all you guys, what's a great community.

 

[herman]

Cave Diver gives excellent advice. Stick to doing dives within your training and ability (50-60 fsw). Practice your skills. Get comfortable with your buoyancy control. When the time is right, seek out more training with a competent instructor or mentor and gradually extend your depth. For now, you really shouldn't be doing any diving in the 100 fsw range, particulary wall dives that drop off into an abyss.

As part of your skill development, you should practice making a very controlled descent. By this, I mean you should be able achieve neutral buoyancy (arresting your descent) at any point in the water column. On your next dive, during your descent, try hovering (without kicking) for 20-30 seconds at various depths: 10 fsw, 20 fsw, 30 fsw, 40 fsw, etc. You'll find that you'll need to be adding small bursts of air into your BCD quite frequently (don't wait until 60 fsw!) to offset loss of buoyancy due to neoprene compression. You'll also learn how the air in your lungs can affect buoyancy. I recommend doing the same exercise on your ascent. It's great practice for developing buoyancy control.

Getting more training and spending some time honing your buoyancy skills is very important before heading into deeper water, esp with no hard bottom. Instead of diving on the bottom, try swimming along at 10 or 20 feet off the bottom, changing depth from time to time using breath control alone. While adding air to your BC is at times may be needed, having to do it often to maintain neutral is a dead giveaway that you are overweighted. This is sepecially true for smaller changes at depth, a 10 ft change at 60 ft for example. Compression of a wetsuit is gradual (assuming you are wearing one) and unless diving a really thick one, not that much, esp after the first 30 ft. On the other hand, a BC that has a considerable amount of air in it due to impropper weigthing requires a lot of air be added and added often to it to maintain neutral buoyancy. Maintaining the buoyancy of a BC with a lot of air in it is a lot more difficult than one that has little to no air in it.

Before heading into deeper water, get your weighting dead on. If your BC has any air in it at all at the surface with an empty tank, you are overweighted.

 

[spectrum]

flofish94

You have the right plan.... Dive more, train more dive more. Get on the right boats, go to the right sites and dive with the right people.

Dive safe,
Pete

 

[gsk3]

Excellent advice so far. Take your time, and practice being neutral all the way down on your descents and ascents--that goes for any dive.

One thing no one seems to have mentioned so far is that having your depth gauge on your wrist makes it significantly easier to constantly (note not frequently but constantly) monitor your depth gauge. Diving in a posture where your arms are always visible improves this further. And monitor your ears carefully. Don't just clear them and ignore them...if you had to clear them, it means you're sinking!

 

[likestodive]

I find it interesting that quite a few people discuss adding air to their BC because they are going to be diving deeper. If you are properly weighted and NOT wearing neoprene, you shouldn't need much more air in your BC at depth than near the surface unless you are overweighted. If you are overweighted and add a significant amount of air to your BC at 60 ft then you will need more air as you go deeper to be neutral as the air compresses. I would estimate that 75% of the divers I see on a typical warm water dive boat are significantly overweighted and have to regularly adjust their bc as the depth changes. More experienced divers don't have to do it because they are properly weighted to begin with. If you are wearing neoprene then you will have to add a slight amount of air to your BC as you go deeper as your suit compresses and becomes less buoyant.

Get properly weighted and diving both deeper and shallow will become much easier.

 

[Togalive]

In the event of emergency, you need to be able to arrest your descent immediately, without complication or distraction. In addition to that, you need to be in control of your ascent at all times...even if distracted etc. You can't do that, if your plan is to drop like a rock and then sort out your bouyancy at the bottom...

I've seen divers get distracted by a minor issue, lose awareness, and then plummet unnoticed beyond their target/safe depth because they were descending negatively bouyant.

Aim to be neutrally bouyant AT ALL TIMES.

Aim to control ascent and descent primarily with lung control.

Add air WHEN IT IS NEEDED, in small and consistent amounts.

Perfectly said advice, and a great addition to all the other great advice given to you. Take the extra time to not be made of lead. Remember, you should just start to descend when at the surface with ZERO air in your BC and while holding a NORMAL breath. So, if your wanting to go down to a depth like 80, and you feel you have taken the proper preparatory measures, then you should be able to descend a few feet at a time, regaining neutral buoyancy as you breathe in, and descend a few more as you exhale again all the way until your going to start needing to put some extra air into your BC for compensation, all the while keeping an eye on your computer/gauges (especially past 60). Dropping like a rock as some divers do could easily get you way past your 80 ft target depth in no time, and as said before, it might be blue water, but you still might see something awesome on the way down

And just in case, I'll tell you first hand that recently I went on my first wall dive. Previously I only had experience diving in 10ft visibility, but being able to see the wall drop off below me (50 ft vis) down to over 1200 ft was initially intimidating as much as it was beautiful, blue water is no different I suspect.