OW - Float at eye level?

[soonerwink]

Most instructors teach the way they were taught to teach. And most will consistently overweight. It is faster and easier to maintain the herd. But that doesn't make it the right way. The right way takes more time and energy, requires smaller class sizes, and more training sessions. To me "good enough for a new diver" - isn't.

I think this is the case in most situations. Also the lakes that we use in this area will silt out pretty quick, and the visibility is not that good to start with. Most instances there is not a platform to perform skills. If a student is trying to keep his balance and is moving his hands and fins trying to maintain his or her position while doing skills will get very frustrated and think that they just are not getting it. If we keep them on the bottom while performing skills, seems to help quite a bit. On the tours and the 2nd day you can have them drop some weight to teach them how to get neutral, and keep them off the bottom.

 

[Mike Boswell]

I am taking my PADI OW course and for the theory I was taught that I should float at eye level with empty BCD and lung full of air.
When in the pool I did not float at eye level, in fact I sank like a brick.
My DI said not to worry and I should ignore what PADI says about this in the pool.
My question is why would my DI opinion be different to that of PADI s official stance? He says that as long as you can go up and down then whats the problem. Im just curious as to why your supposed to float at eye level. Thanks in advance

If you are alert, many of the things your books or instructors say will raise questions in your mind. It is important that you make your instructor stop and answer these questions to your satisfaction, because the learning process builds on a foundation of understanding. Be assertive: You are paying for this class, and you need to get your money's worth.

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

I think this is the case in most situations. Also the lakes that we use in this area will silt out pretty quick, and the visibility is not that good to start with. Most instances there is not a platform to perform skills. If a student is trying to keep his balance and is moving his hands and fins trying to maintain his or her position while doing skills will get very frustrated and think that they just are not getting it. If we keep them on the bottom while performing skills, seems to help quite a bit. On the tours and the 2nd day you can have them drop some weight to teach them how to get neutral, and keep them off the bottom.

Teaching environment is different for many. I teach skills for confined water portion in a pool. Do you teach your confined water section in the lake?
I also usually climb on my soapbox about this topic. I have found that it takes longer, but I teach mine to always keep hands tucked, right from the start. And I correct immediately if they use them. The immediate teaching of hovering and breath control takes a little longer in the beginning, but it makes your class actually go faster later. Mine get the practice to get their hover, then we play the "Stay at my level" game. I ascend a foot, they have to also and stop there. I drop a foot, they have to follow. It is actually great for them to get breath control right off the bat and you don't have to worry about them floating up later. They then do the mask and reg skills. Then they start their laps. Down and pause for a mask skill, then on the way back, a reg skill. We do Lots of laps and circles. Every other class, they then have to warm up by doing ten laps. Good exercise and good practice of skills. Then we go to more skills. I think that if you teach first in a pool, and they get kicks and buoyancy control there, then you don't have to worry about silt out or anything later. We have to worry about killer urchins, lionfish, and stonefish here.

When we get to the sea, we use the same weight as in the pool, then add 1 kilo on each side and check. I rarely have to add more. And they don't hold lots of excess air, because they have mastered (mostly), breath control in the pool. Anyway.... Soap box away--mostly..

 

[RU4SKUBA]

I mildly object to most skills requiring the bottom, so to imagine DMs or instructors purposefully manipulating someone's weights --contrary to safe diving practices-- is verging on negligence in my view. I may be overstating it slightly, but the students' learning comes first and last, and you can't insure that if they're heavily overweighted.

 

[Walter]

I don't get your point, there is a correct amount of lead based on whatever you happen to be wearing from swimsuit through dry suit.

Sorry for not making it clear. I will elucidate. Wet suits compress as we descend and expand as we ascend. When wetsuits compress we become more negatively buoyant. When wetsuits expand we become more positively buoyant. BCs compensate for this compression and expansion of wet suits. As we descend, we add air to our BCs to compensate for the loss of buoyancy we experience as our suits compress. As we ascend, we vent air from our BCs to compensate for the buoyancy we gain as our suits expand.

When we weight ourselves to be neutrally buoyant with an empty BC at depth (we'll use 15 feet as an example), we have a slightly different situation. We get in the water and, as you correctly pointed out, we are positively buoyant and have to kick to get down. Once we've reached 15 feet, everything works just as I described above, adding air as we descend, venting air as we ascend. On our ascent, we can easily achieve neutral buoyancy up to and including our safety stop at 15 feet where we are neutrally buoyant with no air in the BC.

When we finish our safety stop and start our ascent to the surface, our suits continue to expand, so we become more positively buoyant. Unfortunately, we have no air left in our BCs to vent. This means we cannot stay neutrally buoyant from 15 feet to the surface. It is possible to ascend feet up, head down and kick to slow our ascent and it is possible, assuming one is availble, to hold ourselves down using the anchor/mooring line, but most likely we will pop rather quickly to the surface from our safety stop.

When diving in just a swim suit we do not have to compensate for wet suit compression and expansion. A properly weighted diver in just a wet suit will never have to add air to his BC nor vent it regardless of depth.

That's the difference.

Because new divers quite often don't as I'm certain you've noticed

When they don't, it means they will ascend rapidly. Weighting them to be neutrally buoyant at depth make the problem worse, not better. Those who aren't venting their BCs have one of two problems. They either have a BC that traps air (there are quite a few of them on the market) or they have not practiced enough to make the procedure automatic.

 

[Napoleon_wrasse]

ok guys. Time to summarise.

Assume empty jacket-type BC, almost empty tank, 3mm neoprene, relaxed lung volume.

PADI, and Walter, says neutral at surface, eye-level.
Al Mailkovsky says neutral at 8 - 10 ft.
Scubadada says neutral at 15 ft.
ZenDiver.3D says
...1. add small amounts of weight just enough to 'sink and stay down',
...2. float on surface with a full breath, sink slowly with breath release (presumably back to relaxed lung vol).
both of which means neutral somewhere (5 ft?) below surface

Personally
I need to kick a little to descend, and to stop sinking at 15 ft safety stop,
so that means i am neutral somewhere 5 - 10 ft.
Walter, just because there is no air in my BC does not mean i have to ascend feet up kicking to slow my ascent. I have air in my lungs which can be vented. I go up pretty slow. Yes, i know, I'm gonna die (plus i have an Air2 to make doubly sure)

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

Walter when I do my weighting at 8 feet and I can stay on the bottom with a lung full of air it works perfect for me late in the dive. Sorry it doesn't work for you but then again maybe you've just gone by the book?. As I said I don't weight my students this way, it's how I'm weighted for my personal dives not while I was teaching.

Sorry Walter, it just works.

 

[dmoore19]

I am a newbie but here is my take. Boyancy control is one of the most important skills you will learn. If you don't think you are properly weighted you should ask for help getting it done. I would suggest that if you are having problems you get the help you need to be properly weighted. If needed, get (and pay for if needed) the extra pool time one on one with an instructor or a mentor to accomplish this, it is worth the cost and effort. Being weighted properly will make diving far more safe and enjoyable. It is also important to make sure you make adjustments for things like new equipment, especially wetsuits. A trip to the pool for trying out new equipment and getting your weighting adjusted is necessary especially if, like me, you are going on a dive vacation. I think this is the reason most places have you do a checkout dive before going out on a boat dive. I even keep notes on what weight I used in the pool and especially in my log book for reference on future dives. Take the time to make things easy on yourself and to keep from wasting other people's time. You will have a lot more fun if your properly weighted. Hope you find this helpful.

 

[TSandM]

PADI, and Walter, says neutral at surface, eye-level.
Al Mailkovsky says neutral at 8 - 10 ft.
Scubadada says neutral at 15 ft.
ZenDiver.3D says
...1. add small amounts of weight just enough to 'sink and stay down',
...2. float on surface with a full breath, sink slowly with breath release (presumably back to relaxed lung vol).
both of which means neutral somewhere (5 ft?) below surface

I think some of the differences people have with weighting have to do with light wetsuits versus heavy wetsuits versus dry suits. One of my dear friends recommends weighting yourself to neutral with FULL tanks on the surface, but he dives in cold water where thick wetsuits are used. At the end of the dive, with all the air pockets purged out of the suit and with the suit still trying to rebound from deep compression, you're not quite as buoyant as you were at the beginning, so that weighting works. If you did that in warm water where you had only a skin, you'd be way too light at the end of the dive. Same thing in a dry suit, where you don't have any compression to help you.

By the same token, venting gas out of a dry suit can be a pain, and it can be quite difficult to get a suit, at the end of a dive, as squeezed as it is when you are floating on the surface. So I tend to weight myself neutral at the surface at the end of a dive, and then add even a pound or two, so it's easier to stay down on ascent because I don't have to exhaust every molecule of air from the suit on the way up.

Weighting simply isn't that precise. If you're within a couple of pounds of ideal, you're probably okay, so long as you aren't too LIGHT by a couple of pounds

 

[Pullmyfinger]

Also , what is a SAC rate?

It's Surface Air Consumption rate. Some agencies teach it during open water training, others teach it during advanced training. I've met some advanced trained divers that had not been taught this in their advanced course however (???), so it probably depends on the instructor.

It's worth asking an instructor if they are going to cover gas planning when sizing one up for a class.

-Mitch