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Factors affecting beginner air consumption
- Thread starter shawnhar
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Thank you all for the incredibly helpful feedback!
This is a great forum. I am learning so much from reading older threads. I was going to say that I found the information here more useful than the PADI open water manual, but that's not quite true as without the PADI material I wouldn't have been able to understand what I am reading here
For now I'm going to keep diving the easier sites around Seattle, working on basic skills like breathing and buoyancy. Excellent information about tank sizes that will come into play later on, but I'm still renting gear at the moment (planning to purchase my own in stages over the next year or two) and figure I have a ways to go and much experience to gain before air limit becomes my biggest issue.
It's very helpful to be reassured that repeating the same easy dives is a sane way to proceed. My wife and I (who learned together) were the only ones from our OW course who went diving on our own immediately after certifying. Everyone else either went straight into the AOW course, or headed somewhere tropical to dive with a tour group. That first descent without an expert to guide us was seriously intimidating (even though we were just diving a more conservative version of the same thing we did in the OW class) but we both felt it was important to practice what we learned before stretching to take on anything more.
How much experience would you recommend before learning to dive dry? From what I've read this is at least somewhat more complex, so I was worried about task overload if we attempted too much too soon.
Great insight that the difficulty of staying warm increases with experience. My wife gets cold before I do, and at the moment we are well balanced as I run low on air at the same time as she runs low on core temperature. It's helpful to understand that we will be moving on opposite directions, with experience making my air last longer but her chill sooner.
I think I am? But don't know enough yet to be sure.
I had some trouble getting under the surface on my most recent dive, due to nerves and holding too much air in my lungs. Turns out my choral singing instincts (when the conductor raises his baton ready to start a piece, you breathe in as deeply as possible ready to start singing...) are the exact opposite of what's needed for diving I do appreciate this automatic safety limiter though. Not relaxed yet? It's physically impossible to descend until I fix that. I think this is a good sign that I must at least not be massively overweighted?
At my safety stop I needed some air in the BCD to be neutral with 1200 psi left, but I'm guessing would have been close to neutral with an empty BCD at 500 psi. I suppose I should stay down longer next time to find out for sure? My wife doesn't yet feel entirely comfortable maintaining the safety stop, so we were planning to spend some time just practicing hovering at 15 feet in any case.
This is a great forum. I am learning so much from reading older threads. I was going to say that I found the information here more useful than the PADI open water manual, but that's not quite true as without the PADI material I wouldn't have been able to understand what I am reading here
For now I'm going to keep diving the easier sites around Seattle, working on basic skills like breathing and buoyancy. Excellent information about tank sizes that will come into play later on, but I'm still renting gear at the moment (planning to purchase my own in stages over the next year or two) and figure I have a ways to go and much experience to gain before air limit becomes my biggest issue.
It's very helpful to be reassured that repeating the same easy dives is a sane way to proceed. My wife and I (who learned together) were the only ones from our OW course who went diving on our own immediately after certifying. Everyone else either went straight into the AOW course, or headed somewhere tropical to dive with a tour group. That first descent without an expert to guide us was seriously intimidating (even though we were just diving a more conservative version of the same thing we did in the OW class) but we both felt it was important to practice what we learned before stretching to take on anything more.
How much experience would you recommend before learning to dive dry? From what I've read this is at least somewhat more complex, so I was worried about task overload if we attempted too much too soon.
Great insight that the difficulty of staying warm increases with experience. My wife gets cold before I do, and at the moment we are well balanced as I run low on air at the same time as she runs low on core temperature. It's helpful to understand that we will be moving on opposite directions, with experience making my air last longer but her chill sooner.
I think I am? But don't know enough yet to be sure.
I had some trouble getting under the surface on my most recent dive, due to nerves and holding too much air in my lungs. Turns out my choral singing instincts (when the conductor raises his baton ready to start a piece, you breathe in as deeply as possible ready to start singing...) are the exact opposite of what's needed for diving
I do appreciate this automatic safety limiter though. Not relaxed yet? It's physically impossible to descend until I fix that. I think this is a good sign that I must at least not be massively overweighted?At my safety stop I needed some air in the BCD to be neutral with 1200 psi left, but I'm guessing would have been close to neutral with an empty BCD at 500 psi. I suppose I should stay down longer next time to find out for sure? My wife doesn't yet feel entirely comfortable maintaining the safety stop, so we were planning to spend some time just practicing hovering at 15 feet in any case.
I am also a new diver, but have been able to make significant improvements in my air consumption by following a few suggestions already made above. I ditched Al80 for HP100 steel tanks and bought a backplate/SS wing. This has helped me significantly with trim and buoyancy thereby reducing drag. I have also been learning to use my lungs to fine-tuning my buoyancy instead of my wing, reducing wasted gas need to inflate and deflate BC.
To add something to the "breathing slowly" point made by others, the pattern of breathing is also important. On a recent trip to Grand Cayman, the dive operator observed my breathing and made a suggestion that immediately dropped my SAC by 20-25%. He told me to inhale more slowly and fairly deeply then PAUSE for a few seconds before fully exhaling. I'm not talking about skip breathing, just a short pause.
When we inhale, the first gas entering our lungs is the air remaining in our throats and trachea from the last exhalation. It is low on O2 and high in CO2. If we take a shallow breath, this used gas is a significant part of what we inhale. This incites us to breathe even faster as the high CO2 triggers our drive to breathe. By inhaling deeply we dilute the "dead space" gas with fresh gas that has the O2 we need and less CO2. By pausing before exhaling, we give a little extra time for gas exchange to occur at the alveoli. This increases the uptake of O2 and discharge of CO2 in our lungs. Thus, we take maximal advantage of every breath to do its intended purpose. Although we will use more gas per breath breathing deeply, we will breathe less often and actually use less gas over time.
To add something to the "breathing slowly" point made by others, the pattern of breathing is also important. On a recent trip to Grand Cayman, the dive operator observed my breathing and made a suggestion that immediately dropped my SAC by 20-25%. He told me to inhale more slowly and fairly deeply then PAUSE for a few seconds before fully exhaling. I'm not talking about skip breathing, just a short pause.
When we inhale, the first gas entering our lungs is the air remaining in our throats and trachea from the last exhalation. It is low on O2 and high in CO2. If we take a shallow breath, this used gas is a significant part of what we inhale. This incites us to breathe even faster as the high CO2 triggers our drive to breathe. By inhaling deeply we dilute the "dead space" gas with fresh gas that has the O2 we need and less CO2. By pausing before exhaling, we give a little extra time for gas exchange to occur at the alveoli. This increases the uptake of O2 and discharge of CO2 in our lungs. Thus, we take maximal advantage of every breath to do its intended purpose. Although we will use more gas per breath breathing deeply, we will breathe less often and actually use less gas over time.
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- Messages
- 16,409
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I bought a steel 120 right during my certification. Great tank once you get in the water, but I sold it due to it's weight when doing longer shore walks. I also had a steel 72. With this I did find buoyancy easier, especially at the end of the dive. I sold that and now have 4 AL80s. Not that it matters, but my weighting is always the same with the same tank type. Once you get a few dives under your belt, I don't think the type of tank matters. There are discussions on SB about why a steel tank "seems" better buoyancy wise. Anyway, I found that the lesser amount of air in steel 72 was not so great, which is why I traded it for another AL 80.
As I think I said before, doing a proper weight check is the same regardless of one's experience. I don't think I've done a proper weight check in the last 10 years. With my new wetsuit, I needed to add weight but just tried this and that on a couple of dives until it worked. It wasn't worth the bother when by myself and having to go back to shore to add, subtract weights. It will all work out for you.
As I think I said before, doing a proper weight check is the same regardless of one's experience. I don't think I've done a proper weight check in the last 10 years. With my new wetsuit, I needed to add weight but just tried this and that on a couple of dives until it worked. It wasn't worth the bother when by myself and having to go back to shore to add, subtract weights. It will all work out for you.
@shawnhar,
Since you are in Seattle, there is an active GUE community with two very good instructors who teach fundies regularly.
My biggest mistake in diving is not taking fundies earlier. I hope you don’t repeat my mistake.
While GUE can be a controversial organization, I’ll pass on the advice I received from a GUE diver before I took the course: “you don’t have to drink the Kool Aid, just focus on the skills.”
Don’t focus on earning a rec/tec pass, just focus on learning. If you want to practice skills afterwards, I’d be happy to dive with you, as would some of my AOW students who took fundies. Regardless, I’d be happy to go on fun dives as well.
Since you are in Seattle, there is an active GUE community with two very good instructors who teach fundies regularly.
My biggest mistake in diving is not taking fundies earlier. I hope you don’t repeat my mistake.
While GUE can be a controversial organization, I’ll pass on the advice I received from a GUE diver before I took the course: “you don’t have to drink the Kool Aid, just focus on the skills.”
Don’t focus on earning a rec/tec pass, just focus on learning. If you want to practice skills afterwards, I’d be happy to dive with you, as would some of my AOW students who took fundies. Regardless, I’d be happy to go on fun dives as well.
fmerkel
Contributor
Some places actually teach with drysuit. It was about 20 NW dives before I couldn't stand it any longer and went dry. My wife went dry by NW dive 6, along with most of her kit. She was tired of the barely passable rental gear and getting cold. I took a bit longer, being cheap. Made a huge difference. We are both small, 135# for me, 120 for my wife. Small people get colder, faster than large people in general. Simple thermal mass and surface area physics. We now routinely do 60 minuted dives on HP 100 tanks, 68" last weekend. At someplace like Edmonds we freeze before we use up our air now.
I personally didn't find the transition a big deal. I've seen some people get it on a single dive, others take a half dozen, and some can take a long time if you don't have much athletic experience and talent. Just like OW1, the drysuit classes are barely adequate.
I personally didn't find the transition a big deal. I've seen some people get it on a single dive, others take a half dozen, and some can take a long time if you don't have much athletic experience and talent. Just like OW1, the drysuit classes are barely adequate.
Just a little north of you in Vancouver. Everyone in my open water class did drysuit from the start. It really helps keep you warmer especially on the surface interval.
Also concentrate on keeping your hands still or folded and not kicking to hold your position, adjust your buoyancy instead. This was a really tough habit for me to break being a waterpolo player where constant movement is good. However I have slowly but surely been improving my air consumption. You will too!
Also concentrate on keeping your hands still or folded and not kicking to hold your position, adjust your buoyancy instead. This was a really tough habit for me to break being a waterpolo player where constant movement is good. However I have slowly but surely been improving my air consumption. You will too!
lowlysubaruguy
Contributor
Im an air hog fairly new to diving 125 dives ish about 6 years in. I used a ton of air in the beginning im a 200 to 210 pounds high strung over achiever never slows down type but I dont get the right excercise dont get me wrong I work a lot and a lot of my job is physical.
I do a yoga type breathing excercise starting a few weeks or more from when ever I dive. I actualy do this all the time but I practice it before diving. Ive gone from the first one out of air with my dive buddies in Florida to at least almost right on with guys that have been diving for 30 plus years. I do dive HP 100 steel tanks when possible but I can work out a dive in small tanks and be with the group.
Its pretty basic, practice breathing out twice as long as you breathe in. Youll probably never get close. But a little work here will help you a lot. Ive shared this tip with a guy who is in fact now a dive instructor and hes gone from being an air hog to just like everyone else so its not just for newBS.
next it seemed like in the beginning id be so wound up trying to get to that first couple of dives on a trip that I was not relaxed enough to get good use of my air. Its still the same but I dont have that much mental pressure about getting in the water. Back to breathing and relaxing. Today im ready to get in the water from my seat in the airplane. Fact if they could slow up enough and fly just above the water id gear up and jump off the plane as they make there landing approach.
A couple years ago myself and one of my buddies whos always got more air than me at the end of the dive, found an anchor and attempted to float it to the boat and then found a cluster of lobsters it was a very hectic active dive. 30 minutes in hes lower on air than me. We were both out of air. So I can tell you these things can be worked out. I also think if you could find yourself in a controlled 20 to 30 foot dive without any goals other than to drift around you could practice breathing without any mental pressure nor the faster air use in deeper waters. I personally hate being in water shallower than 15 feet because its hard on my ears so id shoot for something below 20 feet. I know theres a lot of places to dive near you like that. Id also suggest getting a big steel tank or two which will help relieve some of the pressure you get diving with others and running out of air. Its funny you dont want to ruin a dive for others and you get stressed out over that and end up burning through your air because of it and then you kill the dive because of that factor.
And then in closing id love to find a dive partner in the sound. Im an hour east of Portland Or but would make the trip if I had someone to connect with.I dive out of Hoodsport every now and then. I found a lot of love for warm water but Im geared up to dive in the sound in any weather. Ill mention I have a beautiful new dive boat if you can figure out a launch id be happy to come up and help you get over your air consumption.
I do a yoga type breathing excercise starting a few weeks or more from when ever I dive. I actualy do this all the time but I practice it before diving. Ive gone from the first one out of air with my dive buddies in Florida to at least almost right on with guys that have been diving for 30 plus years. I do dive HP 100 steel tanks when possible but I can work out a dive in small tanks and be with the group.
Its pretty basic, practice breathing out twice as long as you breathe in. Youll probably never get close. But a little work here will help you a lot. Ive shared this tip with a guy who is in fact now a dive instructor and hes gone from being an air hog to just like everyone else so its not just for newBS.
next it seemed like in the beginning id be so wound up trying to get to that first couple of dives on a trip that I was not relaxed enough to get good use of my air. Its still the same but I dont have that much mental pressure about getting in the water. Back to breathing and relaxing. Today im ready to get in the water from my seat in the airplane. Fact if they could slow up enough and fly just above the water id gear up and jump off the plane as they make there landing approach.
A couple years ago myself and one of my buddies whos always got more air than me at the end of the dive, found an anchor and attempted to float it to the boat and then found a cluster of lobsters it was a very hectic active dive. 30 minutes in hes lower on air than me. We were both out of air. So I can tell you these things can be worked out. I also think if you could find yourself in a controlled 20 to 30 foot dive without any goals other than to drift around you could practice breathing without any mental pressure nor the faster air use in deeper waters. I personally hate being in water shallower than 15 feet because its hard on my ears so id shoot for something below 20 feet. I know theres a lot of places to dive near you like that. Id also suggest getting a big steel tank or two which will help relieve some of the pressure you get diving with others and running out of air. Its funny you dont want to ruin a dive for others and you get stressed out over that and end up burning through your air because of it and then you kill the dive because of that factor.
And then in closing id love to find a dive partner in the sound. Im an hour east of Portland Or but would make the trip if I had someone to connect with.I dive out of Hoodsport every now and then. I found a lot of love for warm water but Im geared up to dive in the sound in any weather. Ill mention I have a beautiful new dive boat if you can figure out a launch id be happy to come up and help you get over your air consumption.
gcarter
Contributor
Something else to consider. Arrive early, start gearing up early, and be the first in the water. Then you get to float and relax while waiting for the rest of the group to get in the water and for the group to descend. As little as 3-5 minutes in water before the dive like this can make a big difference in how relaxed you are on descent, and that reflects in your consumption. It is amazing how much air you can blow through at the start of a dive until you relax and settle in. This can help you get to your diving zen much quicker.
That is definitely something to ear in mind. Getting geared up can be quite strenuous (esp with certain wetsuits/ drysuits) as can surface swims or getting to the buoy.line - spending a couple of minutes on the surface just chilling out can make a big difference to how you feel at the start of the dive.
My first post OW trip was a prime example:
Dive 1 - gear up, swim out to the buoy, take a leisurely swim in a square pattern to 19m. Dive time 31minutes.
Dive 2 - similar.
Dive 3 - had problems with gear (tank one had a dodgy valve, tank two had an insert that was corroded to the valve so made the dive on tank three after 10-15 minutes of running back and forth getting tanks from the van and lugging them to my gear). Felt like crap on the surface and it was reflected in my dive time - shallower profile and ended up at 22 minutes.
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