First two dives without our instructor

[holstin]

Well today was my wife and I first two official dives (7th and 8th total) on our own without our OW instructor. I think we did pretty good except for two things. One was major and one was not.

Major: I didn't pay close attention to my plan depth on the second dive and i exceeded my depth by 3 feet. this however took us to exceeding the allowed time by about 5 minutes. the good part is that our computers which calculate more accurately than the charts shows we had plenty of time due to our varying depth but I still dont like exceeding the charts, especially as a newbie.

Minor: even though we stayed a couple feet off the bottom we were still stirring up a lot of silt due to the fins moving water. I can only assume we must try and stay about 7 or 8 feet from the bottom to stop this from happening. Any advise anyone can give us would be helpful on this one. Besides trying to learn the kicks I see cave divers do is there any thing else that can help. I know the silt really dropps the vision in the Florida springs. The good part we were there with only one other person and they didn't seem to complain but I felt bad.

it was nice to get in the water on our own and My wife and I are starting to get the Fun feeling.

 

[pjones]

There are allot of videos on how to do a "Frog Kick". This kick directs the movement rearward and upward rather than up and down like a flutter kick. What I did is watch lots of videos and tried the kicks on my next dive. You may want to get somebody to show you how to preform one if you have the option as well. I know you requested other options than different kick styles but unless you have stuff dragging on or your touching the bottom this is all I know to keep the silt down (I'm still learning myself)

Hope that helps

 

[Peter Guy]

Holstin, Congratulations! I really wouldn't worry about breaking the hard deck by 3 feet! (My wife bitched at me to day for breaking our hard deck on Sunday -- it happens.)

Learning "non-silting kicks" is a good goal but I wouldn't try to learn them off the 'net. Instead, work with someone who knows what they are doing.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were more vertical than you realize which is why you found yourself kicking up silt. Just work on getting horizontal (play with tank position, weight position, body posture) to see if that lessons the silt trail. (It should.)

After a while, when you feel more comfortable, hire an instructor (or find a mentor) to show you the modified flutter and/or frog kick.

But most of all, have fun.

 

[Atomic_Diver]

Aside from modified flutter, frog, and shuffel kick, you could try to make your fins higher than your head so that any movement is not being directed downward, but it may take some time to get use to/comfortable with this manuver.. Safe Diving!

 

[TSandM]

Good for you, to get out and do some independent diving!

Although a three foot deviation from the plan isn't major, you did learn a good lesson, which is that you have to watch your depth frequently to avoid going where you don't want to go.

As far as the silting goes -- the first step is to figure out how to get horizontal. It's not a good idea to cope with this by diving way off the bottom, because it's MUCH harder for new divers to pick up the fact that they're getting light and going up, if they're a long way from their visual reference.

Work on good body posture, which is to make yourself very long from shoulders to knees (no flexion at the hip joint). You can get the feeling by standing on one leg, and bringing the other out behind you. Feel your gluteal muscles contract to do that? That's a feeling you want in the water, as well. If your head is up and your knees are up and you're still tilting feet down, you need to move some weight around. HERE are a couple of good articles about that.

If you're horizontal with your knees bent about 45 degrees, then you can gently kick from your ankles. You won't silt, and you'll move forward slowly but steadily, which is a good way to swim when you want to see stuff. This was the propulsion method my mentor taught me, before I was ready to learn the other non-silting kicks like the frog kick. It was actually quite easy to master, once I got myself pretty horizontal.

And kudos to you for caring!

 

[jmasin]

Am I misunderstanding? 3ft too deep led you to a "Major" issue, exceeding NDC limits?

 

[Guba]

I ask the same question as jmasin...was your planned dive actually so close to the limits that breaking your deck by three feet was a "major" problem? If so, you might consider making some of your first dives a bit more conservative until you fully develop the routines and habits of checking your depth more regularly. It's true that everyone "grows" into more comfortable divers through experience. Until then, you might want to keep it simple and save the "envelope stretching" for later.

As for the silting dilemma, I agree to what others have said. Many new divers attempt to remain too vertical (fin down position), even while simply swimming along. Ask your dive partner if you are pointing up while finning along normally. If that is the case, your trim needs to be adjusted by shifing your gear configuration. If your trim is already good, then modifying the type of kick used is about the only other solution that readily comes to mind, and other posters have already provided great advice to learn how to do that.

 

[Peter Guy]

I assumed the "3 foot deviation" was one of those cases which put the diver into the next 10 foot mark on PADI's RDP and that he "planned" the dive as a square profile. Note, he was using a dive computer which "told him" he was fine -- and even PADI agrees that following one's computer is perfectly acceptable. (Thank you PADI.)

This is, in fact, one of the complaints I have about putting so much emphasis on the RDP in a mechanical way as opposed to more emphasis on what it is actually trying to show you -- the relationship between time and depth and nitrogen loading.

Good for the OP for recognizing the planning issue but it is too bad the OP didn't get the whole message about nitrogen loading.

 

[jmasin]

Peter,

Understand your point but I'm with Guba. First dive w/o an instructor should normally be much more conservative than getting so close to a limit getting bumped up to the next 10' on the table and hitting an NDC limit.

I just really think new folks should take more time and be more conservative. Unless they were down for hours at 30ft...

My wife and I did our first unattended dives by going to 20' and just dorking around getting comfortable.

I'm a computer diver now for sure, but for a while we treated the tables as gospel... it provided a nice margin being new. (To be completely honest our newness kept us away from NDC limits automatically, a combination of depth we were comfortable at and air consumption, we had no way of getting near the NDC).

 

[holstin]

Thanks everyone for your input. Let me explain a little more detailed as to our NDL limit issue.

our first dive was at 46 feet for 24 minutes. This made us a RG of "D". we were out of the water less than 1 hours. just long enough to top off our tanks and grab a drink and small snack. we were out about 45 minutes. this means we entered the water again at a RG of D. and a residual time of 29 due to we wanted to go back to the 50 foot depth mark. at 50 feet we were allowed to be down for an additional 41 minutes. We planned 25 which would have been well in the limits.

The problem arose because we hit 53 feet for 26 minutes. ( of course the 26 minutes included our safety stop) at 53 we go to 60 feet and at 26 we go to 30 minutes. add our residual and we got a BT of 55 minutes and at 60 feet the charts only go to 50 minutes and thus we exceeded it.

I agree with everyone that this taught us to pay closer attention to our computers while diving. Since we actually were only at the 53 feet for about 2 or 3 minutes becuase it was actually just long enough for me to pick up a flashlight the other divers there dropped and dint realize. most of the diving was swimming in the 35 to 45 foot range and just trying to get the horizontal and bouyancy under control.

I like using the computers but at the same time I want to stay in the charts also because this makes double sure we are safe divers. Once I have more dives under our belts and more training for things like our AOW then maybe I will go to more computer diving. AOW wont be until sometime next year.