Your 5 dives in. Relax and enjoy your dives. Take the pressure off yourself. Buoyancy - Trim - Propultion are not something you know and understand at this point.
Recently certified - buoyancy a mess. Would PPB help?
- Thread starter Zinman
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Belzelbub
Contributor
Absolutely correct. My first instructor did advise a variation of that. This instructor was terrible, by the way. But even this takes it a step further. Just for grins, I checked what this would mean. For those in the US, it would be more like +4. This turns into way more than I've ever needed with a wetsuit and AL tank. Even when I'm trying to slightly overweight for aquarium cleaning work, it's still more.
Buoyancy control is definitely a challenge for many new divers. It is certainly not helped by instructors that overweight their students.
A class with a good instructor can help, but getting a PPB course with a poor instructor is just a waste of money. Much of it you can do on your own with another diver. If you are having trouble descending, you have the opposite problem of most, and could probably use a bit more weight. Not to the point of the /10 + 2, but a bit more. Start by adding a little, then check at the end of the dive. With a tank near empty, you should be at your lightest you'll be. While holding on your safety stop, feel your BC. If it's empty or near empty, you are good. If it's got a lot of air in it, you can lower the weight on your next dive.
Also, keep in mind that you will need to adjust throughout the dive. As you deplete air from your tank, you would need to reduce air in your BC to compensate. Small adjustments, then give it a second to stabilize. Removing or adding too much at once puts you in a yo-yo cycle.
Edit to add: I agree with some of the recent posts. You only have a handful of dives. It's not really expected that a brand new OW diver will be 100% proficient on everything. The goal of OW training is to produce a diver that is capable. Do some dives, work on some skills, and get better each time. Don't need to rush into more training right away. Allow time for the training you have so far to become more natural. Then, you'll get a better feel for what you might need more training on.
OP
Zinman
Registered
The only reason I am asking earlier on rather than later into dives is
- so I can change one small element each dive (upon recommendations)
- see if it makes a difference including incorporating any learnings (like the tank lightening up by th second half of the dive - being mindful of that, which I wasn‘t when i dived; also perhaps underweighted)
- Diving sucks for me right now, it’s not enjoyable at all cos I am either on the ocean floor or surface & I cant manoeuvre myself. But trying something different gives me an incentive to dive again, else i am just fighting against my own dislike for it as I keep repeating the same configurations over and over again, getting the same result. 5 dives - same problem.
OP
Zinman
Registered
very helpful thanks.
A thought on experience....
Several years ago, I was with a group of divers doing a series of dives over a 3-day weekend. Most of the others were either current or former students. One of my former students came to me after a dive, and he was laughing. He said I reminded him of an old vaudeville joke. In the joke, a man tells his doctor that it hurts when he does a certain thing, and the doctor says, "Don't do that."
He had come to me earlier in the day with a problem not far off from yours (buoyancy and trim), and he wanted to know what to do about it. I had essentially said, "Don't do that." What I had actually said was that his problem could and should be solved simply by his own physical actions--exercising control over his body position. On the subsequent dive he had simply adjusted his body position, as suggested--and solved his problem.
When I started technical diving, wearing heavy steel doubles, I felt like I was in a rodeo, with my tanks playing the part of a bucking bronco. I see the same thing with students wearing doubles for the first time. They want to know what do do. Well, what they need to do is do some more dives, and suddenly, magically, the problem goes away.
Several years ago, I was with a group of divers doing a series of dives over a 3-day weekend. Most of the others were either current or former students. One of my former students came to me after a dive, and he was laughing. He said I reminded him of an old vaudeville joke. In the joke, a man tells his doctor that it hurts when he does a certain thing, and the doctor says, "Don't do that."
He had come to me earlier in the day with a problem not far off from yours (buoyancy and trim), and he wanted to know what to do about it. I had essentially said, "Don't do that." What I had actually said was that his problem could and should be solved simply by his own physical actions--exercising control over his body position. On the subsequent dive he had simply adjusted his body position, as suggested--and solved his problem.
When I started technical diving, wearing heavy steel doubles, I felt like I was in a rodeo, with my tanks playing the part of a bucking bronco. I see the same thing with students wearing doubles for the first time. They want to know what do do. Well, what they need to do is do some more dives, and suddenly, magically, the problem goes away.
I won’t go over the points that others have already correctly observed, what I would say is that you need to be weighted correctly being weighted correctly won’t be the great panacea but if you do end up being badly over weighted it will be always hard to maintain horizontal trim and you will find yourself constantly finning to hold position, once your weighting is correct (about correct is fine) it then becomes a question of having the weight in the right place, this I’m afraid you must find out for yourself, (it could be you end up with a kg in a trim pocket high up the cylinder on a cam band or something along those lines) non of these things will come overnight, hat I would say however is that it’s very difficult for any student to learn other in water skills ie midwater smb deployment without already finding it no struggle to maintain position and trim, the student becomes frustrated imo, I would say if you want good practises out of water to learn from go on Google and watch RAID training videos, there are also good ones by interspace explorers.. enjoy have fun and don’t be too hard on yourself, a good instructor will help hugely
how deep you go for now ? Do you shallow, deep , square profile or your stay pretty much at same depth ? What kind of exposure suit you are using ?The only reason I am asking earlier on rather than later into dives is
While I am aware practice is key, but practice with a bit of extra knowledge or improvement is better, in my (inexperienced) opinion. I don’t know maybe most people just figure it out overtime by getting a “feel” for it, but i have no idea what to feel for unless some generous members here share their knowledge, which they did so now I look forward to incorporating those!
- so I can change one small element each dive (upon recommendations)
- see if it makes a difference including incorporating any learnings (like the tank lightening up by th second half of the dive - being mindful of that, which I wasn‘t when i dived; also perhaps underweighted)
- Diving sucks for me right now, it’s not enjoyable at all cos I am either on the ocean floor or surface & I cant manoeuvre myself. But trying something different gives me an incentive to dive again, else i am just fighting against my own dislike for it as I keep repeating the same configurations over and over again, getting the same result. 5 dives - same problem.
@Zinman, you are one of very few divers with less dives than me. I'm really new, so I can definitely relate to what you're experiencing. Right now, my buoyancy breathing kind of sucks and my sac rate is probably abysmal. I, like you, was yoyo'ing in the water and I had trouble staying a depth near the end of a dive.
Here are the things that made a huge difference for me:
-Properly venting my BC (a wing in my case) by assuming the proper body position. And adding/releasing air in tiny increments patiently waiting for the resultant change.
-Relaxing. Somehow, I got 5-10 lbs more negatively buoyant when I quit tensing up and thrashing around.
-Steel tank. I had been renting or borrowing an AL80. But when I bought an HP100, it was like magic both for my trim and buoyancy, especially toward the end of a dive.
-Help from my diving buddies. I was struggling to plane out on a dive, when my buddy signaled me over to a rock at 30 feet depth and I just held on until I got my buoyance dialed in and had a great dive for the remaining 45 minutes.
My biggest problem now is that I don't get to dive enough. You'll get it figured out.
Here are the things that made a huge difference for me:
-Properly venting my BC (a wing in my case) by assuming the proper body position. And adding/releasing air in tiny increments patiently waiting for the resultant change.
-Relaxing. Somehow, I got 5-10 lbs more negatively buoyant when I quit tensing up and thrashing around.
-Steel tank. I had been renting or borrowing an AL80. But when I bought an HP100, it was like magic both for my trim and buoyancy, especially toward the end of a dive.
-Help from my diving buddies. I was struggling to plane out on a dive, when my buddy signaled me over to a rock at 30 feet depth and I just held on until I got my buoyance dialed in and had a great dive for the remaining 45 minutes.
My biggest problem now is that I don't get to dive enough. You'll get it figured out.
mcohen1021
Contributor
Honestly, when I see several divers all checking out the same thing, I say screw it and keep going. Don't care what it is bc honestly I've either seen it before or I don't find it worth it to get beat down by the other divers all jockeying for position to get a better look or the perfect pic.
You don't need to.
Tanks get more buoyant as they get empty.
My best advice to you is to find a pool with a deep end to practice buoyancy. My training facility was at the local junior college and their pool had a 15' pit.
Wetsuits are buoyant until they're fully saturated. So it might take a bit of time / effort to get down when it's dry. The thicker it is the more weight you'll need.
It's OK to go down with too much weight to learn how much you need or don't need. Start out with 12#. See if you plummet or go down slowly as you exhale. Lose 2#, try it again. Repeat until you find you descend slowly. For me, I know I have the right amount of weight when I completely deflate my BC and I'm very slightly negative. That way when it's safety stop time, I'm not fighting to stay down. I could actually do a Caribbean dive with 0# but I wear 3# to account for the empty tank.
In am sure the almighty King Scuba will get on here and tell you what I am saying is all wrong but I'm just telling you what works for me.
Feel free to PM anytime.
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