nolatom
Contributor
19.
No, wait... 20.
No, wait... 20.
How many dives before people got their buoyancy at a comfortable level?
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ratjn
Registered
About 20-30 when I could swim level at depth in 7mm farmer john. More like 50-70 to calmly and effortlessly ascend from depth to 15' and hold with no visual references.
My last dive in British Columbia waters knocked the stuffing out of how 'good' I was getting. My son and I were ascending to our 15' safety stop from 60' in a rather strong current and yo-yoed. Amazing how hard trying to hold a safety stop in turbulent current beside a wall is. Back to the drawing board with some experience to pull on. At least I know what it should feel like. The ole SAC rate went up quite high during the last 6 minutes of this one.
My last dive in British Columbia waters knocked the stuffing out of how 'good' I was getting. My son and I were ascending to our 15' safety stop from 60' in a rather strong current and yo-yoed. Amazing how hard trying to hold a safety stop in turbulent current beside a wall is. Back to the drawing board with some experience to pull on. At least I know what it should feel like. The ole SAC rate went up quite high during the last 6 minutes of this one.
Tigerman
Contributor
I got several compliments on my bouyancy after 15-20 dives, however that was diving a shorty with al80 tanks in the caribbean and my OW course was done in Norway with a 7mm full suit, plus a 7mm hooded vest and 15l steel tanks.
Going over to shorty and al80 from that made bouyancy a LOT easier..
Then I got a drysuit and had to "start over"...
I do agree that its much about mental state as well tbh. I do "get into" new configs pretty fast, but I have also always been very comfortable in the water having swum and snorkled pretty much from the time I could tell my mother I wanted to go to the beach..
Going over to shorty and al80 from that made bouyancy a LOT easier..
Then I got a drysuit and had to "start over"...
I do agree that its much about mental state as well tbh. I do "get into" new configs pretty fast, but I have also always been very comfortable in the water having swum and snorkled pretty much from the time I could tell my mother I wanted to go to the beach..
cloudflint
Contributor
About 30-40 for me, coincidentally it was around the time i stopped diving that 13mm uncompressed neoprene drysuit of mine 
koozemani
Contributor
About 20 dives or so. It's definitely an ongoing process, but it was at about 20-25 dives before I didn't feel like I had to continualyy focus on my buoyancy and at times fight to maintain it.
As was mentioned by another poster, owning my own equipment helped.
Learning to properly weight myself helped.
Taking the zen buoyancy class helped.
Relaxing and taking things slow helped.
Reading SB threads on the subject helped.
And most of all, practice helped.
As was mentioned by another poster, owning my own equipment helped.
Learning to properly weight myself helped.
Taking the zen buoyancy class helped.
Relaxing and taking things slow helped.
Reading SB threads on the subject helped.
And most of all, practice helped.
Guba, I've seen students like you . . . I wasn't one of them!
Buoyancy is much easier to master with minimal exposure protection and relatively small tanks. Getting certified here in Puget Sound in a dry suit and diving steel 95s certainly didn't make things simple for me.
And buoyancy control has a whole range of metrics . . . Simply being able to swim along and look at fish without major excursions in the water column is a different story from managing a midwater stop in a team of three while air-sharing and spooling up a bag
Buoyancy is much easier to master with minimal exposure protection and relatively small tanks. Getting certified here in Puget Sound in a dry suit and diving steel 95s certainly didn't make things simple for me.
And buoyancy control has a whole range of metrics . . . Simply being able to swim along and look at fish without major excursions in the water column is a different story from managing a midwater stop in a team of three while air-sharing and spooling up a bag
Kourtjestr
Registered
I am newly certified, but have to say that I hit perfect buoyancy and comfort on my most recent dive (#6) - and that was only because I was in 82 degree water and didn't need any neoprene to make things difficult. I spent the entire dive exactly where I wanted to be. Now I just need to take that into my 7mm suit and get there.
There may be a tiny percentage of people who just "naturally" pick up on things that others have to work at. I've had just one student who was exactly like what you describe yourself as. He absolutely nailed buoyancy control in his Open Water course--and he's not a lifeguard/swimming instructor/science teacher; he's an animator in Pasadena. As a parallel, I'm one of maybe 1-4% of people who have been able to learn to speak a foreign language as an adult and have no accent. I'm lucky with languages. You're lucky with scuba. Not everybody is.
Bubbletrubble
Contributor
It took about 20-30 dives or so (outside of basic OW class) to feel like I was demonstrating "competent" buoyancy control. At that point, I was feeling more comfortable in the water, I didn't have to "think" about how to manage an ascent/descent in the water column, and I was able to spend the vast majority of the dive neutrally buoyant.
I made a conscious effort to limit maximum depth and nitrogen-loading until I felt very, very comfortable with buoyancy control and had acquired some gas management skills. Sometimes when I hear/read about novices with less than 20 dives going down to 100+ fsw, I just shake my head. Too much, too soon.
I didn't take AOW until I had approx. 60 lifetime dives.
FWIW, I didn't learn any fundamental diving skills, e.g., buoyancy control, in AOW class. I did do my first wall dive (Scripps Canyon, La Jolla, CA) and boat dive (Yukon and RubyE wrecks, San Diego, CA). I had already conducted about 25 night dives prior to taking the class, so the night dive experience in AOW wasn't particularly novel.
The most valuable thing I got out of the AOW class was a wonderful social circle of dive buddies. To this day (6 years later), I continue to dive with the people I met in that class.
I made a conscious effort to limit maximum depth and nitrogen-loading until I felt very, very comfortable with buoyancy control and had acquired some gas management skills. Sometimes when I hear/read about novices with less than 20 dives going down to 100+ fsw, I just shake my head. Too much, too soon.
I didn't take AOW until I had approx. 60 lifetime dives.
FWIW, I didn't learn any fundamental diving skills, e.g., buoyancy control, in AOW class. I did do my first wall dive (Scripps Canyon, La Jolla, CA) and boat dive (Yukon and RubyE wrecks, San Diego, CA). I had already conducted about 25 night dives prior to taking the class, so the night dive experience in AOW wasn't particularly novel.
The most valuable thing I got out of the AOW class was a wonderful social circle of dive buddies. To this day (6 years later), I continue to dive with the people I met in that class.
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