How to perfect buoyancy and trim

[Lobzilla]

Best suggestion. Come down to north Florida and take a cavern and intro course over 3-4 days. I learned more in 3 days then I did as an open water instructor with 36 years of Great Lake Wreck diving.

There is one danger about visiting cave country - you may get hooked.

I started diving in the Ocean, loved the abundant marine life and could not understand why anyone would want to dive in a dark, mostly lifeless tunnel. But I heard that these guys have the mad skills and that they will teach them.

When I eventually got to High Springs, I realized during the first few dives of the class that cave diving is the closest thing the average Joe can get to exploring another, distant planet. These places are surreal in their beauty, even those that got beaten up before me by thousands of other clumsy students.

Now, diving the crystal caves of the Bahamas is one nagging item on my bucket list that I may not be able to cross off.

But participating in the CDF's New Year's Eve Galaxy dive at Ginnie was so mind-blowing that I wonder even more why anyone chooses to do drugs while life offers so much crazy fun for the sober fellow.(BTW: Knowing what happens during the Galaxy dive gives you no glimpse of the power of the actual sensation. You need to immerse yourself in the experience, preferably floating neutrally buoyant and in stable trim ;-)

 

[Cyborg Pirate]

DriverDiver, You answered the question in your original post, and even supported it in your last post. you are getting better with every dive, you are watching other divers and wanting to be like them. Practice some of the techniques offered to you in the other posts. But most importantly.... keep diving, dive often, and work on something every dive. It doesn't need to be a full on skills lab. Just work on something, buoyancy, trim, mask floods and removal, kick styles etc. For me, when it really clicked was staying close to the bottom, as close as I could without touching it. being this close I had to learn to frog kick as not to hit the bottom or disturb it with my fins. holding my hands together and out in front of me, head back. Keep working you will do great. before buying new gear or going to cave country etc. take an advanced buoyancy class. good start and far cheaper then other options. Then you have an instructor to give you real time feed back, probably a camera too. Along with that, knowledge on how to make adjustments when you have gear configuration, thermal protection, and salinity changes that will last you throughout your diving.

With the number of dives you have.... you are just starting to get the hang of things. Even the most experienced divers have to consciously make adjustments when they make significant changes to their gear. you are doing great keep it up.

 

[cneal]

Bouyancy is a variable. Everyone will have dives with bad bouyancy control. Just with experience they are less frequent and less bad. This is from my instructor years ago and I have found it to be true.

Learn to evaluate your bouyacy at the start of a dive and decide how close you should to the bottom or coral on that dive.