Female divers - buoyancy control tips?

[davezwife]

I'm still learning my buoyancy skills. I find my husband useless for tips, he's solid muscle and I'm a soft fluffy mess (hey! just had a baby!)

Any tips? weight suggestions? ideas?

I tend to plunk right down, then after I've sucked up some air, I am pretty good with using my breathing to control my hovering. I do ok on a reef once I'm in the groove.
Then, end of the dive, my dive buddy literally has to hold me down or I'll pop right to the surface, skipping the safety stop. Uugh.

I take a class next week before our next trip, plus I have all new gear. But all thoughts welcome, esp. from women who know!

 

[fairybasslet]

If you can't maintain your depth on your SS, you are underweighted. What class are you taking? Peak Performance Buoyancy? Also, at the beginning of your dive, you might have to add some air to your bc once you reach your cruising depth so you aren't plunking down on the reef. You should be able to rise or fall a few feet using your breath control throughout your entire dive, not just at the middle.

 

[SteveAD]

I'm not a lady, but I have taught plenty of them. The first thing you need to do is a proper weight check, in the conditions in which you will be diving, in full gear, with a near empty tank (<300 psi).

 

[Walter]

If you can't maintain your depth on your SS, you are underweighted.

That or the BC is over inflated. You should be weighted for neutral buoyancy at the surface at the end of the dive when the tank is close to empty (or at the beginning of the dive with a full tank, add lead to compensate for air lost during the dive - 6 lbs for an AL 80).

Buoyancy control is not gender specific. The laws of physics do not discriminate. If you are wearing a wet suit, you'll have to add air to your BC to compensate for suit compression as you descend. Add a little at a time, short bursts as you descend.

I tend to plunk right down

I'm guessing you mean you hit the bottom on descent. If that's the case, it means you are not adding enough air on descent to remain neutrally buoyant throughout your descent. Try adding a little more air a little sooner to avoid hitting the bottom.

I am pretty good with using my breathing to control my hovering. I do ok on a reef once I'm in the groove.

That's very good, you have the feel of good buoyancy control. You're past the biggest hurdle.

As you ascend, you should be dumping air from your BC so that you remain neutrally buoyant throughout your ascent as your wet suit expands. When you reach your safety stop, most of the air should be out of your BC. You'll dump the rest after your safety stop as you ascend to the surface. The BC should be completely empty when you reach the surface.

If you are not wearing an exposure suit, you should never have to add air to your BC at all, you'll be a tad overweighted at the begining at the dive (about 6 lbs with an AL 80), but assuming you aren't a tiny person, you should be able to compensate for that with your breathing pattern.

 

[TSandM]

Walter has a bunch of good points, but I think I may be able to add a couple more.

How do you do your ascents? A lot of people are taught to get slightly negative, vertical, and swim up. This makes it very difficult to do a midwater stop, as you have to add JUST the right amount of gas to get yourself stopped, and then, if you fin at all, you'll push yourself upward and simultaneously get more buoyant -- a hard combination to stop.

I found a much better way to do my ascents was never to get very far from neutral. I'd inhale, start upward, and exhale; if I kept going up, I dumped gas. This, when done in a horizontal position, allows a slow but controlled ascent that you can stop at any point. Then, once you have stopped your upward progress, you have to maintain a quiet breathing rhythm to stay there. I found this a big challenge! The more stops I blew, the more anxious I got about them, and the more likely my breathing was to change in ways I didn't even notice. The first stop I held in cold water was watching a jellyfish, where I didn't even realize I was DOING a stop, so I didn't get anxious about it.

You can work on all this stuff in the pool; holding a midwater stop is holding a stop, no matter where you do it. If you are properly weighted, you CAN do it. It just takes some experimentation and practice. If I can learn it, anybody can.

 

[Tomikp]

I can offer lots of suggestions but the only thing you need to do is training and trying everything possible. Everyone has his own specific skills, equipment and another body type. Therefore I suggest you to take your gear to a shallow water and then spend there hours of training and improving there .