Adjusting Weights

[spectrum]

Thank you Charlie99. Now I'm Getting somewhere. This is a first "Try this procedure" that sounds like an action. I'm sure there are many more like that that you, people with knowledge and experience, could recoment to some newbee. I think I've come to the right place.

OK...

You are swimming on some ledges and have some up a ways and can tell yhat you are becoming uncomfortably buoyant. If you want to work your way back down, initiate a deep exhale and swim downward. In a few strokes you will have descended some, the air in your BC will compress reducing volume and buoyancy and you can drift back to the depth where you BC was happy. If you want to stay significantly shallower then dump a little air. Inflator dumps usually allow more finesse than pull dumps. If you are only looking for a short thau in the shallows exhale deeply and breathe shallow with slow inhales and quick exhales. You want you lungs to empty more than they are somewhat full.

Now lets say you want to rise over a boulder, ledge or whatever. Take a deep breath and kick upwards slightly, if at all. As soon as you begin to rise you want to be exhaling slowly. Remember to never hold your breath, let the air out. Nothing says you need to push the air out. That same little bit of rise will allow the air in your BC to expand and gain more displacement making you more buoyant, making you rise faster and up you go as the cycle repeats. At some point you rise to a level where you need to deal with your rate of ascent per the prior paragraph.

All of this happens while swimming prone an in a relaxed manner.

Lets say you are starting your dive and dropping to the bottom in a horizontal position. Clearing ears on each breath or as needed. Adding bursts of air to your as you go down, breathing normally. You see the bottom, you add more air to your BC, remember the time delay so don't over do it. When you think you have almost enough take a deep breath and see what happens, bang you stop neutral 2 feet from the bottom. Perfect, but you need to breathe! Give the BC a shot of ait as you exhale, a nice even trade.

So there you are 45 seconds into the dive at the same depth and you're dropping. Odds are that trapped air (buoyancy) is escaping from your gear. It's common to need to add small amounts of air periodically during the first 5 minutes or so of a dive, even with no depth change. Once all the stowaway buoyancy is overboard you are home free.

Those are a few sequences that come to mind.

Let me add that laying in bed (or wherever) and visualizing these chains of events is ENOURMOUSLY helpful. You don't need to be in the water to build these habits. It's all physics and it's almost all predictabe. Just watch for upwelligs and down currents near vertical surfaces.

Pete

 

[donacheson]

So, I should breathe shallow? I was told the pattern should be slow in, pause, long breathe-out. By time I breathe-in, I'm going up, fast. Breathe-out results in fast breathing. I could feel it. Al my instractor told me, to take half breaths. Is that a solution? At that point I start to breathe rapidly.

I feal like in no win situation. There must be a solution, and it should be more then one. Any one knows about any articles?

Many thanks.

Just relax and breathe normally. If you're properly weighted, you won't have any trouble holding your depth. You shouldn't even have to think about it.

 

[CJ Waid]

It sounds like everyone covered everything you asked, but I have one piece of information for you regarding weights.

Yea, make sure you are weighted properly, control your breathing, etc. BUT

If you can get your hands on some old led sinkers, and big cast iron kettle, some of the most fun I have had was with my dive buddy, he taught me how to melt my own led. We sat there getting drunk all night on a dive trip melting led over a camp fire.

You melt the led down, and dump it into sinker molds to make your own weights. Its good wholesome fun if you are ever on a scuba camping trip.

 

[Charlie99]

We sat there getting drunk all night on a dive trip melting led over a camp fire.

You melt the led down, and dump it into sinker molds to make your own weights. Its good wholesome fun if you are ever on a scuba camping trip.

Do try to avoid breathing too much of the lead fumes.

From this post, and several other posts you've made in the last day, it appears that you spent a lot of time downwind.

 

[jbd]

Do try to avoid breathing too much of the lead fumes.

From this post, and several other posts you've made in the last day, it appears that you spent a lot of time downwind.

.....downwind and inhaling deeply.

 

[riffdiver]

I Thank everyone for your comments. My next pool session on Wednesday. I will try to implement your recomendations one at a time. If I get buyoncy under control, I'll be fine.

Thanks again, everyone.