Buoyancy 1.0 - the sudden fly away effect

[DivemasterDennis]

I am with those who refer to being over weighted as part of the problem. Excess wight means more air in the bc and thus greater variations in buoyancy with relative small changes in depth. In, addition I am pretty sure you are adding and venting air from your BC in larger increments than you should. Microbursts in and out are the key to control. Keep at it. Your will improve with every hour you spend under water.
DivemasterDennis

 

[Quero]

In my experience with "fly aways" (or to use the diving term "uncontrolled ascents"), one problem is sudden stress/anxiety and the effect it has on the tension of the muscles around the rib cage. When you start to float up and get that "OMG I'm floating up--she said to breathe out, but I've done that, breathed everything out and I'm still floating up! What do I do? I can't get this BCD to dump any more air, and I'm still floating up! Oh crap!!!" feeling, you just tense up all over, including in the muscles of your torso. So while you believe you've breathed all the air out of your lungs, you probably have not, simply because you can't with the rigidity of those muscles preventing you from squeezing down on the ribs and up from the diaphragm. What you need to do is consciously relax those muscles. Try it--take a breath in, tense up the muscles of your torso and then breathe out as much as you can; without taking another breath, relax the muscles and see how much more air you can still exhale--you'll be surprised! When you've done a weight check for proper weighting, the assumption is that you'll be relaxed and able to exhale fully, so when you can't do that due to muscle tension, the air remaining in your lungs will buoy you and exacerbate that "fly away" phenomenon if you're all stressed up and sort of freaking out because you're in the middle of an uncontrolled ascent.

 

[latestartfish]

Hey y'all!

Okay, so, like the OP, I'm working on my OW cert and just completed the pool dive. The only thing I'm sure of is that I was in water. I was up, down, all around, inhaled some water, had a coughing fit, had to surface, went back under, told to go down, add air, release air, bend to dive, clear ears, turn around, scissor kick with legs straight, on and on. It's all a big blur!

I'm calling my LDS tomorrow to see if I can get more pool time before we hit Monterey (Feb. 23, 24) because I'm not sure how to begin to maintain neut bouancy at this point. We weren't told to do the "float at eye level" thing to begin, I was using 28 lbs with only a swim suit, we didn't do any emergency weight drops, not that I would have known how, with my rented BC. I'm completely lost and not sure I could survive another dive.

Oh, and I could hardly walk or move my arms the next day, so another thing that's CRYSTAL clear is my need for more fitness (I worked out today).
:blush:

So, besides being completely exhausted for a couple days, I'm feeling pretty discouraged about the whole thing. Maybe I'll feel better after talking to the LDS tomorrow, and hopefully I can get another pool dive or two before the 23rd.

Thanks for letting me vent, and appreciate the support I always get from you happy fish!

LSF

 

[seattlepaul1975]

LSF.....you should see if your lds will let you take the pool sessions again. If you are not comfortable do not dive. Any lds shop should be good with you doing the pool part of the class to ensure you are comfortable. My lds said they have let people take all of the pool sessions over to ensure they were comfortable and felt ready
Good luck and only do your dives if you feel you are comfortable.

 

[Quero]

Latestartfish, you are on the right track in asking for more pool time. I think you just need time to tool around and get a "feel" for things without the "blur" of doing one exercise after the next. Ideally you should have time to just swim in circles around the pool--shallow to deep; trying to stay in the middle of the water without scraping along the bottom or breaking the surface with your tank; thinking about your finning; etc. It just takes time. I usually ask my students at the end of each pool dive to spend a while (until they're bored with it or satisfied) just swimming around the pool. That's why my pool work is so extensive--I don't add skills, but I do give people plenty of time to practice and play. I've got some buoyancy toys I use (underwater frisbee and neutrally buoyant torpedo), and we spend time doing that as well. It sounds to me like you just need more practice time rather than a re-teaching of skills. When you get the "sweet spot" with your buoyancy in the pool, it's a piece of cake in the open water.

 

[261311]

Latestartfish, you are on the right track in asking for more pool time. I think you just need time to tool around and get a "feel" for things without the "blur" of doing one exercise after the next. Ideally you should have time to just swim in circles around the pool--shallow to deep; trying to stay in the middle of the water without scraping along the bottom or breaking the surface with your tank; thinking about your finning; etc. It just takes time. I usually ask my students at the end of each pool dive to spend a while (until they're bored with it or satisfied) just swimming around the pool. That's why my pool work is so extensive--I don't add skills, but I do give people plenty of time to practice and play. I've got some buoyancy toys I use (underwater frisbee and neutrally buoyant torpedo), and we spend time doing that as well. It sounds to me like you just need more practice time rather than a re-teaching of skills. When you get the "sweet spot" with your buoyancy in the pool, it's a piece of cake in the open water.

Encouraging to hear this. My dive instructor gave us our first pool session 40 minutes to just swim around and get used to the gear, we haven't since though (I'm about to do 3/5 PADI this week). I'm having the same issues as every other new course taker here as far as over weighting goes. I'm tempted next week to ask to modify the weight belt we're given so I don't feel like a halfwit struggling or sinking. Honestly, whether or not it makes the session easier for the instructor, it distracts from the lesson because I KNOW I should be able to control my buoyancy and focus on skills more. Instructor has a heart of gold and has a cool head on him so I'm sure he'll be fine with this, but being the twig I am, sinking isn't fun and nor is swimming at the surface with what feels to be like a near full BC. I feel either way that if I get to open water and haven't learned this that I will master it because I want to but I still feel entitled to get that down in basic training because it's such an essential skill.

 

[Quero]

I tend to weight my students with a minimum (by guessing, so sometimes it's still too much) and I leave weights where I can reach them from the pool to add as needed if the student just can't stay down or as the tank gets light. I want them to get a sense of what it feels like to be neutral, even at the beginning.

There are some factors that influence weighting in the early stages of instruction--one is that when we do "real" dives, we're always a little overweighted at the beginning of the dive because we take a bit more (~4-5 pounds/2 kilos) to compensate for the loss of the weight of the air in the tank as we breathe it down during the dive. If we weight ourselves to do the dive with the "eye level" weighting and a fully charged tank, we will not be able to hold a safety stop at the end of the dive when the tank is "light". But in pool sessions, I'd rather just grab another weight as the tank gets light so that students are not very overweighted initially. Another issue is that new divers always need to carry more weight than experienced divers, and this has to do with comfort in the water and consequent breathing patterns. There's no magic number of dives when comfort is achieved, but even with my OW students, I can often reduce the amount of weight they "need" between one open water dive and the next. The goal is always to dive with the right amount--not too much and not too little--but this right amount is subject to change! So for you, Zach 261311, why not get your instructor to do the weight check at the beginning of the next pool dive and suggest that you'll add weight if you can't stay down? At worst you'll get some additional practice in weightbelt removal and replacement on the surface!

 

[lowviz]

In my experience with "fly aways" (or to use the diving term "uncontrolled ascents"), one problem is sudden stress/anxiety and the effect it has on the tension of the muscles around the rib cage. ...//...

Very similar to hyperventilation. Rapid, shallow, inefficient breathing. Diving is all about getting your Karma hammered back into shape and then Zen-ing out. I'm not there yet but getting close...

peace.

 

[261311]

So for you, Zach 261311, why not get your instructor to do the weight check at the beginning of the next pool dive and suggest that you'll add weight if you can't stay down? At worst you'll get some additional practice in weightbelt removal and replacement on the surface!

I know removal/ replacement all too well. I have trouble staying UP. I sink too easy, hell- even without weight I'm not very buoyant, in a pool I might need 1-4 pounds to put me at that perfect "mask level" placement.

 

[Quero]

I know removal/ replacement all too well. I have trouble staying UP. I sink too easy, hell- even without weight I'm not very buoyant, in a pool I might need 1-4 pounds to put me at that perfect "mask level" placement.

Great!! So start with that 1-4 lb "eye-level" weighting at the beginning of the next pool dive when your tank is full/heavy and then add if you start to float up as the tank gets light towards the end of the session. That way you'll get the sense of what it actually feels like to be neutral.