My midwater buoyancy sucks

[Kevo88]

So I was able to get out and dive the last two weekends in a row, and I'm feeling like I have some serious deficiencies in my buoyancy control. When I'm cruising the bottom or have another point of easy reference, it's not so bad. I'm usually able to stay within a couple feet of my target depth, don't touch the bottom or stir up silt or anything like that.

Yesterday though my buddy and I did a quarry dive where we picked a rock wall that went from surface to 50ffw. The plan was to swim the wall from one point to another at 20ffw (just above a sharp thermocline) and try to spot some walleye and whatever other critters we could come across. Looking at the profile on subsurface, it looks ugly. I had variance from as shallow as 15ffw to as deep as 30ffw.

Now a couple of those were to get a closer look at the wall, but some of them were completely unnoticed during the dive. Is this kind of variance on a midwater dive normal? I'm going to be taking the peak performance course, but wondering if there are any other tips I can take in prior to starting that.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

It's not uncommon for someone who's not used to doing it. When I was teaching, one of my AOW dives involved some mid-water exercise. And almost invariably the first couple of attempts were awful. But as the students got more practice at picking up the more subtle cues (i.e. the need to clear, differences in "feel" as your airspaces expand/compress, variations in light intensity, etc), they got better at responding to them. The trick is developing your awareness of them to the point where you can respond before they become really obvious ... in other words, the secret to good buoyancy control is pro-action rather than reaction.

Go out and practice it some more. Keep a closer eye on your depth gauge as you do the mid-water swim and begin to develop a feel for those little signs that tell you your depth is changing. Like everything else, you'll get better at it with practice ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[kris@bulldogg.ca]

You are looking at the profile after the dive. That's the first step. Buoyancy is something that takes time to master, and practice to keep. The more you dive, the more you will notice the subtle changes as your depth changes.

In the mean time, keep a closer eye on your computer to recognize depth changes, especially when doing safety stops etc, to get practiced at "sensing" the changes as it happens.

FWIW, I don't know many newer divers that look very close at their profiles after a dive. Good for you for focusing on improving.

 

[Kevo88]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll definitely need to pay more attention to my gauges on the next dives. It was pretty easy to tell when I was sinking due to the stiff temperature change, but drifting shallow went totally unnoticed.

 

[AJ]

If your number of dives is correct it does not surprise you're experiencing difficulties with buoyancy. It's takes time to learn the very subtle clues that you're going up or down. You're probably too busy with everything to pick up these clues. Don't worry, just dive a lot and you will learn. Maintaining in the blue buoancy is a a very difficult skill to master, even for experienced divers.

 

[FinnMom]

For me the single greatest thing that messes up bouyancy control is too much weight. It takes a little pracise to be able to get your BCD well & truely empty. You also need to accept that it's OK to have a little trouble getting under at the start of the dive, don't be too quick to grab more weight though because (1) you might not actually have your BCD empty yet and (2) once you get to about 18" you might notice that you are sinking and don't need more weight.

Another big help is learning to stay horizontal. It's much, much more difficult to swim and stay neutral if you are vertical, or bobbing from the horizontal to vertical/partially vertical. You might find it helpful if a friend takes a go pro and films you as you move around underwater.

BTW, give yourself a break and try practising in something like 10-12m of water until you get fairly good at this. If you start out practising in water only 2-5m deep it's much more difficult (because in shallow water coming up or down 1m/1' changes your bouyancy by a greater % than if you were a noticably deeper and made the same 1m/1' change in depth).

 

[rongoodman]

I noticed problems on the Cocos Island trip, probably because I was a little overweighted since almost every dive required a negative entry.

 

[Kevo88]

I very well am probably a bit overweighted. On this particular dive I was wearing 18lbs of weight in a Hollis 8mm semi dry. I dropped 2lbs to 16 on the next dive and I was still able to descend without much trouble.

 

[decompression]

Kev, sometimes you have to start at the beginning as it's often skipped over in a lot of scuba classes. I hope your PPB instructor covers these things......
1. Breathing.....breathing is buoyancy.
2. Have you adopt proper trim position and tips on how, arch the back and squeeze the cheeks. Arms out front.
3. Ensure you weight yourself so you have a balanced rig, which is neutral at a 10' stop.
4. Find out if you are head or feet heavy
5. Adjust weights accordingly
6. If he performs a "Buddha sit" under water, tell him you want your money back. Let me know and I'll teach you for free.

 

[Kevo88]

Kev, sometimes you have to start at the beginning as it's often skipped over in a lot of scuba classes. I hope your PPB instructor covers these things......
1. Breathing.....breathing is buoyancy.
2. Have you adopt proper trim position and tips on how, arch the back and squeeze the cheeks. Arms out front.
3. Ensure you weight yourself so you have a balanced rig, which is neutral at a 10' stop.
4. Find out if you are head or feet heavy
5. Adjust weights accordingly
6. If he performs a "Buddha sit" under water, tell him you want your money back. Let me know and I'll teach you for free.

Thanks for the advice and things to keep in mind. I haven't picked out an instructor for ppb yet, I'm assuming I should be asking questions related to these points before signing up?