BettyRubble
Contributor
TS&M is exactly right about the anticipation part. As soon as you decide to go up, start dumping a little air and take a deeper breaths - you will start to ascend. Watch yourself as not to hold your breath but just breathe deeper. Once you go up a few feet, level off and hover for a while.
The hover thing after a few feet is a good point. Even when I'm ascending correctly I find that I still ascend a little quicker then I'd like so I will focus on doing a few feet then hover, few feet, then hover.
So if you come up on fumes because one of them screwed the pooch and you had to donate, how is your weighting?
Poor pooch . . . well this is a good question . . . one of the ways I think I know I am slightly overweighted is I feel overweighted at the end of the dives . . . . so I assume that's because I am coming up with more then the typical 500 lbs of air and I'm weighted for the assumption I'll be coming up with less air. I'll do the free flow thing this weekend and confirm that though.
Yeah, I'm still hoping to stick those stops - one day
I was told of one advantage of horizontal for ascent/descent; you're moving a larger profile through the water than if you're vertical, so the water resistance to you moving is higher if you're horizontal. That helps slowing you down, giving you more time to react, vent etc.
When I started trying to descend horizontal I noticed a difference immediately. When I am able to do it, it is easier to get to correct buoyancy AND my ears are easier to clear . . anytime I am wonky at the beginning of the dive and therefore don't descend horizontally it drives me batty. This is also how I know I am over weight, once I descend to about 8 feet I am a sand dart. So hopefully all these tips will help me so I can drop another pound or two.
I had similar problems until recently. I had 14 lbs for my suit and worked pretty good except towards the end when my AL80 got light. So I figured I have it weighted just right. Until this Saturday when at the second dive I forgot to move my 4lb tank weight from used to full tank and went diving with 10lbs. Mid dive I realized that I forgot to move the weight and that I am diving with 10lbs. (This was my dive #45.)
At the end of that dive I stayed down at around 20ft until I dropped well below 500psi and I managed to still stay down without drifting up.
So good thing for me is that I realized I didn't need those 4lbs. On top of that at 15-20ft I don't need any air in my BC. So this works better. Makes me happy.
I took couple of dives yesterday with 10lbs and works good so far. I am happy.
I think if I can master the cork issue and drop a pound or two, I'll have my sweet spot. I dive steel 72 or 80's though. I can not stand alumnium tanks - except the super 80's which are hard to find. THe super 80's are shorter and fatter and need less weight compensation then the other AL's I've dived. As a 5'2 diver, it is so uncomfortable to dive with 'long' tanks as they hit me in the head and arse at the same time