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Interesting how very experienced divers can have at least small differences in their approach to buoyancy and horizontal etc. More than one way to skin a cat I suppose.
THE BASICS OF DIVING BUOYANCY CONTROL - Abyss Ocean World Liveaboard
- Thread starter Liddell Marilyn
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I think the points made in the last 2 posts (among others) are really important. Flexibility in technique allows common sense to prevail.
Recently I was on a liveaboard where it was all wall diving. I was the only idiot who continually swiveled out of horizontal trim or craned my neck every few feet along the wall. In and out of horizontal trim like a seesaw. The others--some of whom had done dozens of liveaboards--cruised along sections of wall at comfortable 45-degree or so angles, going horizontal only to and from the wall. Diving style really does need to account for the type of dive. Having learned to obsess about horizontal trim, it's hard for me to break the habit. I have come to understand that the REALLY skillful diver is the one who can fluidly adjust his diving style on the fly to suit the situation.
Exactly my point. Well said.
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
Stops are when my students get vertical. I want them to slowly turn and look for boat traffic.
Years ago, while I was still a student with the tech agency that made horizontal trim the be all and end all of diving, my buddy (also a student) and I were diving along the cliff wall in a sinkhole. We were examining a sloping edge under an overhang. That ledge had beautiful crystal clusters, but to see them we hat to look upward at an angle of about 25-30 degrees. The dive was on our own and not part of our classwork, but we still felt we had no choice but to be in perfect horizontal trim, even though to see the crystals we had to look up at that angle. When we were done with the dive, we both had very bad neck pain from that struggle. We talked about how absurd it was that even though our instructor was not there to chide us (and he would have indeed chided us if we had gone out of trim), we had been so thoroughly ingrained with that concept that we supposedly intelligent adults had lost the ability to make an independent decision and adjust to a comfortable viewing angle.
I am talking about multiple decompression stops, not a final safety stop.
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
Ah, not something I expected in "New Divers".
As for wall diving, I am usually horizontal, but on my side. I am planar to the surface I am traversing.
I do try to be in trim most of the time but if something is worth seeing I will adopt whatever position is best for doing that. If I want to see something at the bottom of an outcrop that I have just crested or in a gulley, I might go vertical with head down feet up instead of staying horizontal. Lot quicker and easier than staying horizontal, gliding past it, turning while horizontal and then slowly heading down and then back up.
When traversing between points though I will generally be trimmed.
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