I need help re: practicing safety stops in a pool

[LanceRiley]

are you over weighted? happened to me when I was overweighted. but as I kept on shedding weights. i found it relatively easy to do the 3min stop. why? I had very little air (1- half a breath of air) or no air in my bc depending on content of my al80 tank. I realized that if your bc contained a substantial amount of air... ascending and descending will give you bouyancy swings...

 

[Pro Scuba Courses]

Unless you are making your open water dives in fresh water, its probably not that beneficial to practice in a pool, because of the differences in your buoyancy between fresh water and salt water. Make sure you are correctly weighted before you dive by doing a proper buoyancy check. Remember that if you do a buoyancy check with a full cylinder, you will need to add approximately 2 kg to compensate for your increased buoyancy as you use the air in your cylinder. Practice using your breath control to hover motionless in shallow water. If possible practice somewhere that you have access to a descent line, so that you can grab onto it to support yourself if necessary. Its all to do with being correctly weighted and having good breath control. Of course as soon as you start becoming anxious that you are starting to rise, it compounds the problem because you tend to breath more heavily increasing your lung volume and causing you too rise even more! Practice and experience will solve this problem. Happy diving!

 

[Session Eleven]

I just finished my OW checkout dives in the last couple weeks as well. A few things that helped me was swimming during the safety stop. For some reason (hydrodynamics, constantly making corrections), swimming horizontally at 15 feet is a lot easier than hovering (although we did have to do a stationary stop for one dive as well). Also remember that buoyancy isn't the only thing that affects where you are in the water column. I found when ascending that it was easier to get myself a pound or two negative and simply kick up. With gentle finning, I could maintain a depth while I dialed in my buoyancy in a relaxed manner. This clearly isn't the most air or energy efficient method, but it helped me from being too bouncy.

 

[Frosty]

ronfrank I've just got back from 10 days of non stop dives. Part of that diving was my 4 kids ALL now have at least 2 dives each and EVERY one of them had exactly the same issue you describe but being small and light they had the issue for virtually the entire dives.
The issue was nailed for them comnpletely OUT of the water.--I know it sounds stupid but there were two things happening.
First was even though the first rule was totally locked in their heads (NEVER hold your breath) they would hold a lungfull as they were trying to dump or add air to their BC.
The second thing was they diddn't realise that the effect of adding air or dumping air takes time so they would dump more or add more air.
The third was they diddn't apreciate what it meant to take a tiny sip of air into the BC or dump a tiny amount.
Their instructor took the step of getting them to sit poolside with reg in mouth and practice a SMALL air dump.
Then count OUT LOUD -one thousand one-one thousand two one thousand three.
Then add some air -count -one thousand one etc.
SMALL sips. SMALL dumps.
Argue the methodologies validity but it worked for all of them.

 

[NavyGuyAN]

When I first recieve my OW cert. this past summer. My instructor basically beat it into me (not literally) to keep your finger off the inflator on you BC and that its not an "elevator button." After doing your safety stop, you swim to the surface carefully watching your accent rate. As as you break the surface then you "inflate" your BC. You dont wanna have any "run-away accents" where you can risk lung over expansion. As for maintaining 15 ft. practice proper buoyancy control and breathing control. I actually recently had a little trouble with maintaining 15ft. it was off-shore and I was drifting alittle between 12-18ft.
Pretty much the same thing Peter said. Remember practice makes perfect!

 

[TSandM]

For some reason (hydrodynamics, constantly making corrections), swimming horizontally at 15 feet is a lot easier than hovering (although we did have to do a stationary stop for one dive as well).

When this is true, it is highly likely that you are not ever actually getting neutral in the water column. Swimming permits the diver to work against the tendency to sink or rise. Holding still requires much closer buoyancy adjustments, and very good breathing control.

Juardis, if you still have access to the pool, I think one thing that might help you a lot is to practice hovering in whatever "midwater" you can manage in the pool, and taxing yourself with distractions. If you have things that are clipped to your BC, unclip them and put them back. Take your mask off and put it back on and clear it. Switch regulators. These are all things you should already know how to do, but doing them really requires that you learn to maintain a steady, rhythmic pattern of breathing, despite being distracted or mildly stressed.

I know, when I was fighting my buoyancy issues, that Doc Intrepid (boy, do I miss him!) told me 80% of buoyancy is mental. And he was right. 80% of buoyancy is staying calm and centered enough to keep your breathing under control. For a long time, I was anxious about ascents, and because I was anxious, my breathing would change, and as it changed, the ascent got "bouncy", and when it did, I got more anxious . . . you can imagine where it all ended up. Breathing and buoyancy are inextricably intertwined. Get the former under control, and the latter will improve immensely.

 

[Juardis]

Juardis, if you still have access to the pool, I think one thing that might help you a lot is to practice hovering in whatever "midwater" you can manage in the pool, and taxing yourself with distractions. If you have things that are clipped to your BC, unclip them and put them back. Take your mask off and put it back on and clear it. Switch regulators. These are all things you should already know how to do, but doing them really requires that you learn to maintain a steady, rhythmic pattern of breathing, despite being distracted or mildly stressed.

since I originally posted this, I have spent more time in the pool and am now fairly comfortable hovering at 10 feet. Like you suggest, I have been doing all my skills while trying to maintain 10 feet and, while not perfect, I am more proficient. The hardest skill is taking my mask off entirely because my eyes are closed and it's all about breathing then. I managed that successfully last night so I'm much more confident now. I also started some new skills I wasn't taught in class but learned about from the fine folks here - like doffing and donning my BC while maintaining neutral buoyancy and disconnecting my LPI hose and reconnecting it. I could manage those well enough too. Ironically, I lost buoyancy control fiddling with my compass trying to figure out how to use it properly. I wound up on the bottom lol. Go figure.

I also think I'm now overweighted as I seem to have to add a lot of air to my BC at 15 feet to stay off the bottom. I guess with comfort comes the need for less weight. Plus my wetsuit is no longer new so it might have lost some of it's buoyancy (just a theory, no idea if its true).