Mastering Buoyancy skills

[cummings66]

What lake are you going to? Beaver Lake has a helicopter in it as well. To be honest buoyancy control at 50' is a cake walk, try it at 10 if you want to fine tune it.

To be honest one of my best dives was done at a depth of 17 feet.

[3rdEye]

Originally Posted by cummings66

What lake are you going to? Beaver Lake has a helicopter in it as well. To be honest buoyancy control at 50' is a cake walk, try it at 10 if you want to fine tune it.

To be honest one of my best dives was done at a depth of 17 feet.

well, i do....on a safety stop @ 15'. And yeah, i suppose it is a bit harder for some reason. And today we dove at Dutch Springs in PA. Here's the helicopter: http://www.dutchsprings.com/ImageHelicopter.htm

so, here's some notes on my diving today.


First dive was the helicopter, which is a large helicopter @ 88' long and 22' high. The bottom of it is at about 55'. So, this gave me something interesting to play around while fine tuning my buoyancy. Now that I was much more focused on it, I found I was easily able to get neutral, and hover perfectly after a few adjustments of the inflator. I could hover still, and drop when exhaling and breathing a bit shallow and exhaling faster. And could rise by inhaling to full capacity and exhaling much slower. One thing I had picked up in my OW classes a few months ago was exhaling very little by making a T-T-T-T-T with my tongue, as to only release a few bubbles, this allows you to keep that breath for quite a while, probably up to 30 secs to a minute if you wanted to. So, I did quite well on this dive, slowly rising and falling with just my lungs, kicking very little. Tried different positions - straight up, horizontal, upside down, etc. etc., all around the craft, at different depths, sometimes making small adjustments to the inflator, but not much. Occasionaly I would sink too much or rise too much.

When it came time for the safety stop, we ascended to 15' on a line.


The second dive involved more swimming, first to a wreck of a firetruck at about 25', then to some platforms, then along a wall that went down to about 50' or so. This went ok, gave me a chance to work on control while swimming. Safety stop this time was in open water, not really near anything, and with poor visibility, so that was a challenge. By the last minute, I finally did get leveled off at 15'. I find it much harder to acomplish that without any visual focus point, because you often don't realize you are ascending or sinking.

Third dive was more swimming to a few boats and a cessna at 20', schoobus at 40' then back a platform for more practice, where I did fin pivots and hovers extremely easily, and practiced hovering horizontaly over the platform at different distances.

So, good day of diving and skills practice. I think that eventually, this will become second nature...kind of like driving stick. Right now, as long as I can concentrate on it, I can pretty easily do what I want to do. Now at least, I know what I need to work on.

More practice...

Also, being as it was out dive shop's customer appreciation day, my dive buddy won a free photo specialty class (taught in the big shark tank in the Camden Aquarium I believe).....I walked away with a neoprene cap and a mousepad....hahah...oh well.

Thank you all for your replies.

[lucidblue]

We definitely did much better with buoyancy today. I'm still having issues when we hit the colder water below the thermocline. It is much harder for me to control my buoyancy at that point. I'm most comfortable from 20-40 feet. Like 3rdeye said, it's much easier to control buoyancy when there is a point to focus on. I have more detail I can add later, I'm just too exhausted right now.

I was really thrilled to win the underwater photography specialty class... I never win anything worthwhile. It's nice to get a specialty class free. This is one I definitely wanted to take at some point, but wasn't sure it was worth paying for.

[torrey]

I tend to drop without adding any air until I'm about 10 feet from the bottom, then I'll add a good shot of air until I almost stop, then use small shots on the inflator until I'm right above the ground and neutral.

[lucidblue]

There's a good article in this month's Scuba Diving magazine about the 6 Tips for Perfect Buoyancy. I'll summarize a little later if I have time. Covers a lot of what was discussed here in a very clear cut way.

[Buoyant1]

Originally Posted by 3rdEye

--snip--
Third dive was more swimming to a few boats and a cessna at 20', schoobus at 40' then back a platform for more practice, where I did fin pivots and hovers extremely easily, and practiced hovering horizontaly over the platform at different distances.

--snip--

Did you approach the Cessna from the bottom of the "island" that's such a cool way to see that thing!

I love Dutch, I was just there on the 9th! If things work out for this weekend I may be going there.

Did you make it out to the Trolley?

[lucidblue]

So the "6 Secrets of Buoyancy Control" article in this month's Scuba Diving states these factors affect your buoyancy:

Factors that don't change once you've selected them and start your dive:
Ballast Weight
Trim

Factors that constantly change during dive:
Tank Weight
Exposure Suit
Depth
Breath Control

The main point is that most divers are overweighted right from the start, because they have trouble with their descent. A few tips to help you get descend with the proper weight are:

1. Be patient it takes the wetsuit a couple minutes to get fully wet.
2. Reach up and keep the inflator hose above your head, stretching it a little.
3. Rock backward a little, helps get an air bubble air out that a lot of BCs trap behind your head.
4. Relax.Hold your right arm tight at your side and stretch your legs downward while pointing your fins. Don't move around a lot.
5. Keep exhaling until you start sinking. Then only take shallow inhales until you're below 5 ft.

There's also an option about forcing your descent by going head first.

The article goes into detail about each of the other factors listed above, but I'd be copying the article if I got too far into it. Definitely worth reading. I'm going to focus on all of the points mentioned during my next dive.

[cummings66]

You mean they tell you to descend head first if you can't get down? I assume they tell you to be properly weighted so you can hold a stop right?

I'll have to get the magazine and read the article I suppose.

[3rdEye]

Originally Posted by Buoyant1

Did you approach the Cessna from the bottom of the "island" that's such a cool way to see that thing!

I love Dutch, I was just there on the 9th! If things work out for this weekend I may be going there.

Did you make it out to the Trolley?

we started that dive at the Silver Comet, then to another boat on the way to the cessna, so we came up from 60'....the cessa is pretty neat because all around it drops off into deep water.

didn't make it to the trolley or the crane yet, still a lot of things I have yet to see there

[torrey]

Originally Posted by cummings66

You mean they tell you to descend head first if you can't get down? I assume they tell you to be properly weighted so you can hold a stop right?

I'll have to get the magazine and read the article I suppose.

I had to do a lot of this at a local scuba park over the weekend. I had forgotten my weights, but I was paired with somebody who didn't know the park, so I didn't want to have to get out and go get them. I wasn't heavy enough to descend, so I had to fin down (only about 20 ft or so max). Once down, I was relatively neutral as long as I didn't hold my breath. It became a little more of a pain as the tank started emptying, but I managed to make it work. Now I know that I may have been slightly overweighting myself to begin with when not wearing a wetsuit.