Dives 5,6,& 7 complete

[LowDrag]

Wow...I went up to a mountain lake to work on my buoyancy for the day. I thought I was back in the Puget Sound again. LOL!!! The water was about the same temp at depth and the viz was just about as murky on top of it. Being as I am still very green my buoyancy was definitely all over the place but I did feel like I improved after the day was done. We started off by checking my weighting and I ended up starting out with 32 lbs in my belt and BC. After dive #2 I dropped down to 30 lbs and felt as if I needed a push to get down so I am thinking I need to add those 2 lbs back again. I still sink though when I stop kicking and try to hover. I know this will come with time so I am not worried about it at all. Our dives averaged about 30 - 40 minutes each and the deepest point I hit was 59', my buddy hit 62' as he was just a bit ahead of me. All in all, it was a great day and I can't wait to get back in the water in a couple of weeks. Next drop will be in salt water again so more weight checks for me in my fufure...LOL!!!

Oh, I almost forgot. My buddy had me lead the third dive. That was a goat rope if I ever saw one. I ended up leading us right into the middle of a group of people cooling off in the shallows. I freaked one of them out until he saw my fin break the surface and then he knew what was headed their way.

 

[TSandM]

Sounds like a great day.

If you sink when you stop kicking, what that tells you is that you were using kicking to stop from sinking -- in other words, you weren't neutral, you were negative. This is very common in new divers for two reasons. One is that being neutral feels very insecure; neutral is only a breath away from positive, and most new divers would rather sink than cork (and they should). Another is that the typical new diver is not horizontal, but angled to some degree head up. If you think about it, if your fins are aimed anywhere below horizontal behind you, they are to some extent pushing you up in the water column. The only way you can avoid going up is to be negative, but that means that when you stop kicking, you will sink. It all has virtually nothing to do with your total weighting, although it may have something to do with how you have that weight distributed, if the weight distribution is tending to make you be feet-low.

 

[Mustang29]

I'm glad to here that you are getting out & logging some more bottom time.
As TSandM said some of your buoyancy and weighting issues are likely more of a trim issue. Have your buddy watch you & give you some feedback to help make some adjustments to your weight, and tank placement. It took me about 5 dives after certification to get it pretty close to dialed in.

What lake did you dive?
I have been considering some of the local lakes around here (Estacada), but the boat traffic has been pretty heavy with all the lakes having been recently stocked with trout, and the warm weather attracting water skiers.
Once the fishing backs off we are going to dive Harriet lake, our favorite fishing hole, to see exactly how the structure is below. It should make fishing there even better.

 

[Scuba_Noob]

Eventually your buoyancy and navigation will improve with more dives. You're still getting comfortable with the basics of diving, so things are going to be a bit rough.

Three dives in one day - that's great! Sometimes I wish I had the time and motivation for that...other than for dive trips.

 

[LowDrag]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the helpful hints. I will with my buddy tonight and see what he can tell me about my trim. My weights were set up like this:

2 - 5 lb'ers in back non-ditchable pockets
2 3 lb'ers in ditchable pockets
16 lbs in weight belt

My tank was a steel 95 weighing in at about 49.4 lbs each give or take .2 - .4 lbs. I was curious so I weighed them on a bathroom scale. It was riding higher on my back than when I did my OW cert dives. I felt like I was trimmed out pretty good but then again what do I know yet right???

I am working on the video from the dives tonight and possibly tomorrow and then I will post it up on YouTube and post it here.


@ Mustang29. We were diving Timothy Lake up on Mt. Hood. Nice scenery but the viz needed some help

@ Scuba_Noob. Yeah three in one. I guess I don't have to tell you how bad that kicked my a$$ right??? :shocked2:



---------- Post Merged at 09:17 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 07:58 PM ----------

Just got the word from JC..."Level if ever so slightly up". So I am wondering if the 10 lbs of weight in the back maybe should have been swapped with the two 3 lb'ers up front?

 

[LowDrag]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to place weights in my BC to get trimmed out better? Thanks for any in for posted.

 

[TSandM]

Weight distribution is unfortunately completely idiosyncratic; each person, and each gear setup, has to be balanced separately. What works for me may not work for you, because some of it depends on tank type, body shape, exposure protection, type of fins, and location of trim pockets and other places to put weights. You just have to keep playing with it until it works, and always remember that you only need to get balance somewhat CLOSE with static weighting, because you can affect it quite a lot with body posture.

There really are no mysteries in diving. Everything that happens in the water is determined by pretty simple physics. Things that are less dense than water want to go up; things that are more dense want to go down. Ideally, you would like to have all your negative things directly above, or under your positive things, so you won't rotate. In practice, you can't do that, because people are much longer than BCs, and the BC bladder is usually your biggest positive thing. So instead, you have to make sure that every force on your lower body is countered by something above your waist. If your fins are negative, you need weight up top; if you're wearing a very thick wetsuit, you may need negative fins or ankle weights to avoid going feet up!

What you do know is that when you stop swimming, you sink. That means that, when you stop, you've removed some force that is pushing you upward. There are really only two that you can change; one is the push from your fins, and the other is how much air you have in your lungs. Most new divers don't change their breathing patterns much -- they're too busy breathing like crazy But the kick is another matter. Even if your body is fairly horizontal, if you are dropping your knees or otherwise getting your fins pointed somewhat downward, you have upward force.

If you can find somebody to video you, the next time you go out, we can be much more helpful.

 

[LowDrag]

Cool, thanks Lynne. I will see what I can work out.

 

[NightForce]

One thing to consider is how much weight you are using. Iam 6'1" 230lbs with a full 7mm wet suit, back inflate standard BC,aluminum 80 tank, hood and gloves diving fresh water and I am using 10 lbs.less weight than you. I feel as if I could lower my weight down I just have notspent the time yet this year. I do not know your body composition this is justmy own example. Many times if a newer diver has difficulty sinking it does not alwaysmean you need more lead. Some newer divers subconsciously are not fully exhausttheir lungs to begin to sink they still instinctively hold some air which makesis more difficult to sink. Consider that if you are carrying extra weigh thismeans that your BC needs to be inflated more which is pulls up on your torsoaiming you more head up as you swim which is raising you up in the water. Thenwhen you stop swimming you are no longer swimming up so you tend to sink.

 

[Agility]

Being quite new to diving myself I can remember my issues with weighting and trim (which is not near to perfect yet).
What helped me most was taking time for a correct weight check with really only 50bar in my tank.
I was able to remove 6kg of lead which means I had 6l air less in my jacket for my next dive. That makes a huge difference because as TSandM said the air in the jacket is nowhere near my center of gravity. After that I started moving my steel tank up and down the jacket to see what difference it makes. Marking the position of the camband on the tank with a pencil made adjustment easy.
All this of course assumes you always use the same gear. Unfortionately every (rented) jacket has different characteristics concerning air and weight distribution.