Info How descend properly?

[John C. Ratliff]

Interesting

Never?

I too descend head first but most others I see descend feet first, initially.

Is the surface dive even taught these days?

SeaRat

 

[Boarderguy]

Is the surface dive even taught these days?

SeaRat

It was mentioned in my wife's padi class April 2022 but not demonstrated or utilized. Overweight and empty bladders until they hit the sand in their knees...

 

[John C. Ratliff]

It was mentioned in my wife's padi class April 2022 but not demonstrated or utilized. Overweight and empty bladders until they hit the sand in their knees...

Well, the surface dive was in the 1970s one of the fundamental skills taught when we taught snorkeling skills, and brought to scuba. It remains the best way for a neutrally buoyant diver to begin a descent. It’s amazing to me that now scuba instruction is geared almost entirely toward the resort/travel diver, and not the person who will use scuba in cold water near home. The description of adding weight to descend rapidly and depending upon the BCD at the bottom would in the 1970s be what we considered a dangerous practice. Now, it is standard practice. As we were developing the BCDs, Bill Herder, of Deep Sea Bill’s in Newport, Oregon, was developing some of the first back-mounted BCDs available, as he built them into his custom wetsuits. He called it “Push-button Diving,” and that is how I still feel about it. There is now a dependency on the BCD, which is why it is now as expensive as the regulator. This dependency is not healthy, in my book, compared to a diver who has the in-water skills that do not need the BCD to function.

By the way I almost always am head-down in my descents, just as I was when I first started scuba in 1959.

SeaRat

 

[inquis]

Learning to freedive is a great way to improve your scuba diving.

 

[clownfishsydney]

Interesting

Never?

I too descend head first but most others I see descend feet first, initially.

Never. A couple might drop a metre feet first but then head first all the way. Most do a duck dive.