Recently certified - buoyancy a mess. Would PPB help?

[Zinman]

Your only problem is that you've been reading too much scubaboard and watching too much dive talk. Your expectations for yourself is too high.

Where in NZ are you?

NZ has no coral at the depth your diving so don't worry too much about grabbing things if you need to. Our marine life will grow back.
We also have **** all good instructors as most New Zealanders are only interested in hunting crayfish so training has adapted accordingly.

There is a GUE instructor up north near Auckland somewhere but I don't who any specific details.

All you need to do at this point is dive. Stay shallow. Have fun. You'll get better.

Do a weight check on your next dive.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Too much reading - I agree. In absence of practical, theory is the only saving grace. I have learnt quite a few things from google that I have hugely improved the skills we did in OW but not the buoyancy part. I am in Auckland.

The recreational dive guides said they will do a weight check, and I requested for it. But when we got to descending, they got everyone to descend quickly and forgot to do weight checks. But yes I will make it a point to remember that each time even if they forget.

 

[MidOH]

Weight check at end of dive. I'm always heavy at the beginning. But I'm always a touch heavy.

What helped me is to descend feet first. Slow the decent half way down to a crawl. Then tiny little puffs to set my buoyancy near the bottom. Being mindful of my breathing.

Exhale to go down. If a complete exhale won't let you go down, dump a little air.

At the end of the dive, I dump my wing and fin my way up. Then very slowly inflate to maintain my safety stop. Err towards being negative, cause spinning boat props and traffic, sucks.

It takes time to get it right. Buoyancy was easy for me, I struggled with trim.

My fully flat, flutter trim is lovely. My parachute position frog kick, not so much. Switching to Hollis f1 fins and DUI rockboots, to try some more.

 

[boulderjohn]

s (your weight divided by 10) + 2.

One-on-one with a good instructor

You absolutely need to spend time with a good instructor, and I am pretty sure you have never met one. The weight divided by 10 + 2 advice is absurd. Stay as far away from anyone who tells you that as possible.

Many dive guides want people to descend quickly. Descending quickly is not a good test for proper weighting.

 

[Zinman]

Weight check at end of dive. I'm always heavy at the beginning. But I'm always a touch heavy.

What helped me is to descend feet first. Slow the decent half way down to a crawl. Then tiny little puffs to set my buoyancy near the bottom. Being mindful of my breathing.

Exhale to go down. If a complete exhale won't let you go down, dump a little air.

At the end of the dive, I dump my wing and fin my way up. Then very slowly inflate to maintain my safety stop. Err towards being negative, cause spinning boat props and traffic, sucks.

It takes time to get it right. Buoyancy was easy for me, I struggled with trim.

My fully flat, flutter trim is lovely. My parachute position frog kick, not so much. Switching to Hollis f1 fins and DUI rockboots, to try some more.

My ascent and descent have been fine so far. I float up during the swimming around part of the dive (I am never more than 6-8m depth), but i don't float up in first half of dive. So it's probably depleting air. And float up will usually happen in 3-4m depth. And once I start to float up, and I know it's happening, but I can't seem to do nothing to stop it. I use deflate button to see if any remainder air can be dumped, I ll exhale (albeit not efficiently cause I go into panic mode).. nothing works. Someone from underneath has to pull my fin to bring me down.

 

[TMHeimer]

Lots of good advice here. Find a good instructor, make sure you do a proper weight check. Biggest thing I learned in OW course was add & subtract TINY bursts of air to the BC.

 

[grantmac]

Take a bit more weight and do a lot more diving.
You need to be 2-3kg "heavy" at the start of a dive to be correct at the end.

 

[Tom_Ivan]

yes I will make it a point to remember that each time even if they forget.

You don't have to do it every time. Take note of how much weight and stick with that.
Only need to recheck if you change equipment.

After a few more dives you'll do an end of dive weight check to fine tune your buoyancy but Steve's procedure will do for now.

 

[Litefoot]

What really helped me to be less floaty is to make sure my body is in the correct position when dumping air. Make whichever dump valve your using the highest point so all the air can escape upward.

 

[MidOH]

Still sounds like more weight is needed. But make sure to extend the dump hose, and consider rolling your left shoulder up to dump.

It all gets easier deeper. Should be a smoother ride by 35-40 feet.

Could be a leaky inflator valve as well.

 

[34109411]

I am a newly certified OW diver (3 weeks at the time of writing). And I have done 1 guided dive since. So total 5 dives, 4 being a part of the course.

So as new as new can be. I didn't take to scuba naturally, needing 2 attempts and the 2nd being a private course so it worked at my pace. My first recreational dive was yesterday. It wasn't great.

My buoyancy is a colossal mess. I can swim buoyant horizontally back and forth, as that's something practiced a lot in the pool. Theoretically I know all about inhale and exhale, and I can use that for fin pivots. I can control breath enough to go over kelp or a rock etc as long as it's only a little bit of movement. But otherwise can only really swim in a straight line, body horizontal.

Issue 1 - I can't go down to look at stuff (guide wanted to show me a crayfish at the bottom of a kelp/shrub and I was about a metre or so above it) but there were already a couple of people down there taking photos; but I'd swum past it. I can't do sharp turns, or go downwards (and if I try, due to time lag, it will be pointless - the fish would be gone, which I don't care much about tbh at this early stage). I can't swim backwards either. I can't hold any position in water except horizontal with legs either up or flutter kick when moving. So ANYTHING that breaks this position, and my momentum will completely throw me off. Even if another diver shows up under me, if I end up being too high in water column, it's my instinct to get away from that column as their bubbles are going all over my face. If someone touches my fin, I ll lose my horizontal position and my body starts to contort.

Issue 2 - during my course ocean dives, I was too scared to add air to the BC for the risk of floating up (around 5 m depth). So I ended up either sitting on the ground or sinking to it with every exhale and using my finger to propel me back upwards. During my recreational dive yesterday, I didn't wanna be sinky or on the ground (as the terrain was full of kelp and uneven). So this time added more air to BC & in the second half of the 1 hour dive, floated up and stayed a minute on the surface (looking down at the rest) until someone noticed and one of the dive guides brought me down.

Initially, from Google reading I thought I was overweighted as most new students are. My OW instructor decided my weights after a few weight checks. My recreational dive yesterday was with a different shop to where I did my OW course, and they were surprised at how little I carried. They said it's (your weight divided by 10) + 2. They did not weight checks before descent.

I carry 4kg lead (I weigh 60kg). Based on the equation, I should be 8. I think that's a lot, surely the equation won't work as it factors in nothing.
And my fins are Heavy to manage my floaty feet (decided by OW course instructor).

I am at my wits end with research. I am either floating up or sinking down. I know everyone says buoyancy is practise, but I am starting to hate the dives cos' I know what will happen and I have no idea how to fix it. What do I even practice or change? I am just getting more experienced in getting it wrong I believe.

The recreational dive guide said to do PPB course, but shouldn't you have some dive experience under your belt to do that and perhaps atleast your own BCD (to get the best out of it)?

Is there a course that teaches you how to manoeuvre yourself? Bend your body in different ways so you can look at fish etc. or that just comes with buoyancy?

I am a very slow learner and things don't come naturally to me unless taught properly. That's why I fear the practice practice practice advice may fall short on me, and I ll end up teaching myself.. well - nothing, or worse - something wrong.

Some of the "more experienced" divers at the recreational group yesterday said to hold on to a piece of rock or something (safe) to maintain buoyancy, but I have heard and read repeatedly, touch nothing unless it's been put there for you to touch.

Any help or guidance would be hugely welcomed. And sorry for the long post!

would you please give you a chance ? You have 5 dives ! It will come with practice. Buyoncy, trim, fining are key aspect that take sometimes before mastering them efficiently.