First 2 Confined Dives Complete - Buoyancy questions

[TMarsland]

Hi all!

I introduced myself last week in the intro's. I'm Tom, and just for some background info I'm about 5'11", and weigh about 175 lbs. I just did my first two pool dives last night here in Hawaii, and man, what a rush of fun!

I did get a bit nervous and even a bit nerve-wracked at times, however, over buoyancy control, and thought I'd pose a few questions here about my buoyancy and weights.

For the Open Water course I rented all of my gear except booties, mask, snorkel, and fins. As I wear contacts, I purchased a mask with a purge valve in it. I bought a set of Rondine Cressing fins which seem to fit my feet great, but feel super long (not sure if this is because I'm new or not), and a snorkel (Absolute brand, I think) with a little flapper on the end to try and keep water out.

My instructor weighted me with 8lbs on a weight belt and I am using a jacket-style BCD. We made it through all of the goals for dives 1 and 2 to include breathing with no mask for a minute, fin tilt for buoyancy and all that, but I still feel "off" on controlling my buoyancy. Like, way off.

First, with the 8 pounds of weight, when the instructor signalled to go down I was always the slowest to get to the bottom. I let all the air out of my BCD and only when I made a HUGE exhalation did I sink. If I inhaled again, off to the surface with me!

Then, our instructor signalled for us to get on our knees on the bottom and watch him. I had almost no trouble sitting on the bottom, but had a heck of a time on my knees. With the fins on it felt like I had to use my quadriceps to hold my butt back towards my ankles or I was going to float away. I'm not sure if this is just me needing to relax more or not, but I always felt "tensed up" when doing this.

Finally, the fin tilt for neutral buoyancy. The intructor gave me the okay sign both times I did this, but mentioned I needed to straighten my legs out more both times. However, both times I really felt as though my legs were. Once he said I was neutral, he had me go on a swim around the pool, but as soon as I took off swimming, I popped straight to the surface from the bottom (10 feet). He mentioned I was "butt-diving", that is, swimming with head down, butt up, and legs down, so when I finned, I propelled myself up. But it seemed no matter what I did, I couldn't get perfectly horizontal.

However, when we swam back to the shallow end I was horizontal just fine, except my fins did touch bottom a few times.

I guess my questions are as follows:

1) Is it normal for me to be feeling like I'm struggling right now? I don't want to get ahead of myself or anything, but I really feel like this might be hard to manage, and another part of me feels that next time I dive I'll feel more comfortable.

2) For my body size and weight, do I need more lead? He said maybe I should go to 10 pounds, but the other guy who had 10 pounds the instructor said was too heavy.

3) Any tips on achieving a horizontal trim that I just haven't learned yet?

4) Finally, when the instructor did say I was neutral, it felt like with one big exhale I could crash to the bottom, and if I inhaled too much I'd be a bobber again, yet I was taught slow and long breaths. Any tricks here?

Thanks for all the help, and I'd appreciate any suggestions!

Tom

 

[TSandM]

Tom, for some of us, buoyancy control isn't instinctive. You might get some moral support from reading the journal of my OW class, the link to which appears in my sig line. And, by the way, from that inauspicious beginning, I've gone on to a Helitrox cert and a Cave certification. So there's hope for us all!

The only piece of advice I can give, based on what you have written, is that if you are diving in a position where your butt is up and your head and legs are down, you might benefit from lying flat on the bottom of the pool, and slowly puffing tiny bits of gas into your BC until your breath takes you up off the bottom. DON'T do a fin pivot, because that doesn't guarantee your body is nice and flat when you come off the bottom. DO come up from lying flat, with your knees a little bit bent. That will put you in a nice, horizontal diving position when you become neutral and float.

See if that helps!

 

[TMarsland]

Thanks a lot, TSandM, and I'll be sure to give that a try! I have my next set of confined dives tomorrow, so we'll see how they go!

 

[Geoff_H]

Hi Tom, for your questions

1. Yes, it is perfectly normal. I didn't get fully comfortable in the water until 30-50 open water dives and I don't believe my experience is atypical.

2. There is no exact science - it depends on your body composition, innate BCD bouyancy, water salinity, tank type & size (Aluminium or steel?) and wetsuit type and size. Having said that, 4kg/8lbs is certainly in the ballpark I would expect.

3. Practise, and dive. If you are putting this much thought into it after only 2 confined water sessions you should have no problem going foreward. I don't know a single person who hasn't dropped lead as they became more experienced and skilled as divers. Personally I went from 8kg to 2-4kg, and I remember thinking I would never be able to "sink" at the start when I had 8kg.

The short answer is relax, and dive, dive dive. Your bouyancy control will come with time, assess it after a few open water dives. You might feel a lot more comfortable at 10m than 2/3m (pool depth) as your wetsuit compression changes with be a lot less at depth than in the shallows of a pool.

 

[Geoff_H]

For question 4 - I think again this comes with experience. I liken it to learnig to drive - to start with you need to think exactly about when to change gear, how to depress the clutch, and how to release it to engage the gears smoothly. To start with you'll get it wrong, stall, shoot forward and make some nasty crashing noises...

However with time you'll start doing it more automatically, and in the endgame you'll change gear without any conscious thought 99% of the time. This will come despite the complex inputs to gear changes - present speed, desired speed, road conditions, future hazards and whatnot.... in time your brain learns to process all these without conscious thought.

Similiarly for diving, you'll soon have a feel for your current bouyancy, whether you are are "sinking" or "rising", where you are heading, your trim and where you want to be positioned in one minute. All of these will feed into your brain and you'll control your breathing instintively to help you get there.

For the time being, think about the delay between inhaling a full breath and starting to rise - this should be a few seconds... similarly venting a lungful of breath and you should start to sink in a few seconds - neither case is immediate. Also there is inertia - you will only start to rise/sink slowly.

By keeping a consistent pattern you should be able to minimize any sinking/surfacing effects, I can't help with specific tips (I'm no instructor) but just reassure you it will come in time.

 

[jarnhus]

Hey Tom

As a fellow beginner (OWD + 6 dives) I can definitely second that. I am still struggling like a drunk turtle in the water, but I feel a slow improvement in my control. One of the things, that really boosted my a long way was to focus on relaxing, swim slowly and take the buoyancy problems as they came. You will get better fast! And it will soon feel more comfortable.

My personal trick for focusing a lot on my hands, making sure that they are always folded on my belly. I don't know why, but this little trick was enough to make me relax a lot and thereby bringing down the number of buoyancy mistakes, that I make.

Hope it helps... Good luck with your OWD.

Who knows.. We might meet at some point for a dive and both be buoyancy masters :monkeydan

 

[pengwe]

4) Finally, when the instructor did say I was neutral, it felt like with one big exhale I could crash to the bottom, and if I inhaled too much I'd be a bobber again, yet I was taught slow and long breaths. Any tricks here?

Thanks for all the help, and I'd appreciate any suggestions!

Tom

When you are neutral you can control your position in the water with your breath, like you are describing. If you feel yourself floating up, exhale sharply and you will come back down again. In reverse if you are sinking. It sounds like you are spot on. You maybe just need to fine-tune your awareness a little bit, so that you notice the slightly floaty, or slightly sinky feeling before it builds up too much momentum.

The default is long, slow breaths, but controlling your buoyancy with your breathing is a very useful skill.

 

[TMarsland]

Sounds great, thanks again to everyone for the help! I figured it would get easier as I went. I'm looking forward to my next two confined dives tomorrow!

 

[scubadiver888]

There are a lot of factors for how good your buoyancy is but one factor that gets better with time is you. Until you are comfortable and relaxed in the water your buoyancy will be off. I was like you and just decided to add more weight. As I got more experience I started dropping more and more weight and could still get down.

I recently started diving in colder water. More wetsuit equals more weight. I had to re-calculate how much weight I needed. I decided to not over-weight myself this time. First cold water dive was a shore dive with a really rocky entry and a bit of surge. Getting into the water, getting my fins on, etc. got me a little out of breath. I tried to get down and had a hard time. First thought was to add more weight. Instead I floated out to water deep enough I could just touch the bottom. With a little air in my BCD I started doing breathing/relaxation exercises. I let the surge rock me back and forth. After a few seconds of this I was calm, not breathing hard at all. I let the air out of the BCD and sank to the bottom... HARD. On the next dive I dropped 4lbs.

Talking to other divers (who have hundreds of dives) they tell me I'm doing well for someone with only 3 dozen dives. I had been comparing myself to the people I was diving with. I realized I was a lot better now then when I first started diving (16 lbs without a wetsuit! Now I'm 12 lbs with a full wetsuit). I know I still have room for improvement but it just takes time.

For you, it is just a matter of being really excited. I still get really excited about diving but I've learnt to calm my body down in spite of my excitement.

 

[Guba]

I may have missed it, but was a surface buoyancy check in there somewhere? (emptying the bc, normal breath, and adjusting the weights until floating about eye level?) That should come close to answering the question about the proper weighting (although some divers will fine tune that process even more with some additional preferences). I tend to go with a "scientific method" approach--tackle only one variable at a time. If the weighting is correct and there is still a problem, move on to posture and trim, etc... All the posters are giving great advice, IMHO.