Best techniques for Open Water Descent & Ascent

[satwar]

I know the general answer is to do it slowly, but what techniques are used for safe descent and ascent. I found myself falling like a stone in 30 feet of water and realized I didn't know what I was doing. It scared the hell out of me, and fortunately no permanent damage to my ears. While I'm taking a few weeks off to allow my ears to recover, I thought I'd research the best techniques. Please help.

 

[spectrum]

I like to drop horizontally after using the bottom dump of my BC. Clear ears on each breath and add frequent small bursts of air to the BC to manage rate.

As for ascent, a deep breath or a little upward swim can get the ascent started. Vent small amounts often enough to control your rate. As the surface approaches I like to finish vertical with an extended arm leading.

Pete

 

[Firefyter]

Let just enough air out of your BCD to start your descent, and go horizontal (like a skydiver). You have more control over the speed of your descent because you are creating more drag in the water column. If you find yourself starting to descend too fast, add a little air at a time to the BCD to slow back down. It's much easier to control your speed horizontally than vertically.

 

[Crush]

1. If your ears equalize with difficulty (as mine do), do the Valsalva (SP?) technique (plug nose, close mouth, blow) an hour or so before your dive. Do it again in 30 min. If you can't pop your ears this way, you can't dive that day;

2. Descend slowly, very slowly. As you descend, your suit (wet or dry) will compress, so put small shots of air into your BC every 5 to 10 feet to keep your ascent slow - if you don't, you will accelerate;

3. Descending horizontally takes practice, but it will allow you to descend more slowly.

Just a guess, but if you "found yourself falling like a stone" you may have been very over-weighted at the surface, and when you dumped all the air out of your BC you might have found yourself at negative 5 or 8 lbs buoyancy instead of a more ideal negative 2 to 3 pounds (for a new diver). Perhaps decrease the lead you are carrying.

 

[CamG]

Greetings satwar and as others have mentioned being horizontal takes practice but is the way to descend and ascend. You can maintain better buoyancy control while watching your gauges and using your BC inflator. As others have mentioned on descent use small bursts of air to slow your descent, the deeper you go the more air it will take to remain neutral due to the ATA or atmospheric pressure at the given depth.

As you ascend the gas will expand and need to be vented to maintain buoyancy control.
30 feet per minute is the suggested rate for ascents and slower is not a bad thing as long as you are in control. Always make sure you can hold your safety stop.
I like to stay horizontal and exhale all the way through the final ascent. Personally my ears react better, vent better and thus have had fewer problems.

Buoyancy control takes time to master and it takes diving to gain the needed experience and skill. Practice, practice and practice some more!
The fin pivot and proper weight checks will be familiar exercises as you gain mastery.
Be conservative in your dive plans and avoid doing dives that exceed your skill level and comfort level. A run away, "uncontrolled" ascent or descent can be catastrophic to your ears and has the potential for serious injury.

Take your time and gain experience diving safely, you will find that it will not take as long as you think. Dive time is a must to gain mastery.
Get your ears back to dive shape and go diving the answers you seek are in the water.
CamG Keep diving....Keep training....Keep learning!

 

[Ben_ca]

Just a guess, but if you "found yourself falling like a stone" you may have been very over-weighted at the surface, and when you dumped all the air out of your BC you might have found yourself at negative 5 or 8 lbs buoyancy instead of a more ideal negative 2 to 3 pounds (for a new diver). Perhaps decrease the lead you are carrying.

+1

Check your weighting.... that might be the root cause

 

[AndyNZ]

I know the general answer is to do it slowly, but what techniques are used for safe descent and ascent. I found myself falling like a stone in 30 feet of water and realized I didn't know what I was doing.

To be honest, I'd ignore the ascent/descent techniques issue to start with - no disrespect to those saying "do it slowly, do it horizontally" as they are spot on, but they are also just answer the question as it was asked.

I'd suggest that you look at the reasons why you were dropping like a stone before you try and work out how you deal with that. There is a fairly good chance that you are diving with way too much weight.

So I'd suggest taking that step back and doing a weight check - there's no such thing as "the weight you need" that will always be the same, and it's possible that you were given more weight than you needed when you learnt to dive.

The best time to do a weight check is at the end of the dive with a tank nearly empty. If you had a tank with 35bar / 500psi in it, your overweighted if you still find it easy to descend. To descend at that point, you'd really be looking to squeeze all of the air out of your lungs and working hard to descend. If you just drop below the surface when you let some air out of your BCD, then drop a few pounds of lead and try it again.

If you get your weighting right, it becomes a lot easier to control your descents and ascents.

 

[fnfalman]

I know the general answer is to do it slowly, but what techniques are used for safe descent and ascent. I found myself falling like a stone in 30 feet of water and realized I didn't know what I was doing. It scared the hell out of me, and fortunately no permanent damage to my ears. While I'm taking a few weeks off to allow my ears to recover, I thought I'd research the best techniques. Please help.

You're grossly overweighted and that's why you drop like a rock. So the first thing you need to do is get yourself properly weighted.

If you drop as fast as you claim right now, then next time when you go out, subtracted 4lbs of lead right away and see how your descension look like. If you still sink fast, then start subtracting more weights in 2-lbs increments. Keep doing this until you don't sink when you deflate your BC.

Once you get to this stage, examine yourself and see how you'd float once you empty your BC and fully exhale. If you're a rec diver with a single-tank on your back, you'd want to be floating just below the surface at this point. Now, we can work on your descension technique. Deflate BC fully and exhale out while stick your head down and kick down. If this duck diving technique is uncomfortable then push yourself down by doing the jumping jack thing with your arms and hands until you start to sink on your own. Don't forget to breath, but don't suck in a lungful. Suck in enough air to live.

You should be sinking ever slowly at this time and just turn yourself over to get into the horizontal position. Spread your arms and legs out like a starfish so that you'd decrease the descend rate, giving you the chance to equalize, see where you're going and start inflating the BC in small bursts to get ready to establish neutral buoyancy at whichever depth that you want to be at.

 

[k ellis]

I know the general answer is to do it slowly, but what techniques are used for safe descent and ascent. I found myself falling like a stone in 30 feet of water and realized I didn't know what I was doing. It scared the hell out of me, and fortunately no permanent damage to my ears. While I'm taking a few weeks off to allow my ears to recover, I thought I'd research the best techniques. Please help.

MOST likely its a weighting issue. If you are weighted near perfect youll find when all of your air is out of your bcd youll slowly decend with each breathe you let out. Dont be surprised when you breathe in it slows the decent though.

When your weighted just right youll find a deep breath (not holding it)is all you need to do an ascent. A shallow breathe will give a decent and a normal breathe will keep you just where you want to be

 

[BuoyantC]

If gauging your decent/ascent rates is the issue, just look at the small bits of debris in the water close to your mask. Seldom are they actually moving much in the water column and you can help gauge your speed from these.