How to plan for Komodo or Raja

[Dan]

Practice not to exhale through your nose as it’ll steam up your lens and end up clearing your mask often, wasting gas, dissolving the defogger film off your lens, requiring more mask clearing, getting more stress over it and breathing more. You may need to equalize the pressure inside the mask may be once or twice a depth, but that’s it. Get a low volume mask.

 

[bvbellomo]

One thing that helps me reduce my SAC is to get the buoyancy set when I reach the bottom. Once you are in neutral position, you’ll be finning less effort and more gliding. Try not to use your hands to paddle unless you need too, like a draft pushes you towards a wall and you don’t want to kick fragile coral off the wall. Then plan on doing a V profile diving, avoid a yo-yo diving as it’s not only bad for your air consumption, but also bad for your ears.

If an Olympic marathoner and the average person jogged together for 10k in an hour, the Olympic marathoner will use a lot less oxygen - maybe only 30% as much. But if they sit down and watch TV together for an hour, it is hard to say which uses less oxygen, and certainly doesn't matter who pushes more buttons on the remote control.

Minimizing muscle use when you are using a lot of muscle makes a big difference. But if your brain, heart, liver, etc are using far more oxygen than your muscles, I am not convinced cutting the tiny amount of muscle you use matters.

 

[Dan]

With experience you become more relax and just move when you need to.

 

[Indah]

My 12th dive was 0.628. Everything before that was significantly worse or I don't have data to calculate.

My best dive on my recent trip was #72 with 0.538 - so I am improving, although not quickly and I still run out of air with a 100 before less experienced divers with 80s.

The easiest part to improve - finning and more active motion, I am already good at. What I suck at (literally) is just drifting or hovering with almost no motion, and on deeper dives I am the first to run low. I don't know how to practice to improve - I might get physiologically better just by diving more, but I don't think there are any specific skills I can practice or being in better shape or losing weight will make a significant difference.

I can get my mask, weights and camera ready in 1 or 2 more quarry trips around here. My point was that even past 80 dives, I have more to do before I am ready, so I don't understand people taking this sort of trip with less than half as many dives.

Do you have a pause somewhere during your breathing cycle? If so, it should be after exhaling.

 

[Centrals]

Regular mask, and not absolutely necessary to get ready ahead of time, especially if I pack the old one too just in case. I've done 81 dives, the 77 most recent using the same mask. Besides a good seal and comfortable fit, I should practice clearing my ears, flooding my mask, removing it and putting it on again and get comfortable doing this. Some of these are just skills I need work on even if I kept the old mask.

I am taking a scuba trip by myself half way around the world. Knowing that whatever goes wrong, I have a comfortable mask with a nice clear view that I am used to doing what I need is very reassuring.

My point is, it is very hard to dial in the equipment you are comfortable with on 50 dives - especially if you are diving mostly to enjoy diving and not to test equipment or learn skills. 5 dives before I even started buying my own gear - 20 more to get used to what I started with, 20 more to learn why I don't like it, then swapping stuff out and getting familiar with the new. I can't imagine having 20 dives and buying a ticket to Indonesia with the gear I just purchased or planning on renting there.

Practice what you think you must. They are all BASIC and nothing challenging(to me).
I learnt diving aboard, OW and AOW(two trips), and only equipped with my own mask and nothing else! Did couple of days of diving in PNG after OW.
We are all difference.

 

[bvbellomo]

Do you have a pause somewhere during your breathing cycle? If so, it should be after exhaling.

I don't have a set breathing cycle for scuba. I've looked for more information on this, but everyone has always told me just to breath naturally and not think about it, which is really weird for as a former tuba/trombone player, and current marathon runner and martial artist. I've also done some mountain climbing and hiking at altitude. In those contexts, how you breath is really important, and "don't think about it" and "just breath naturally" is very bad advice.

Is "pause after exhaling" something you figured out on your own? Or part of something being taught that I have looked for but couldn't find?

For scuba, I usually try to breath until my lungs are completely full and then exhale until they are completely empty and repeat as slowly as I can without pauses. This seems efficient and is very relaxing, but it is different from how I breath naturally sitting at my desk typing.

 

[Damselfish]

Whether "breath naturally" is good advice depends somewhat on what your usual breathing pattern is. But I think often when that is suggested, it's in response to someone doing overly convoluted things with their breathing and generally overthinking it. What you're doing sounds reasonable, and you're paying enough attention that you will realize things and fine tune it over time.

 

[Indah]

Is "pause after exhaling" something you figured out on your own? Or part of something being taught that I have looked for but couldn't find?

The Process of Breathing | Anatomy and Physiology | Study Guides

courses.lumenlearning.com

 

[tridacna]

If we can’t go to Indo, we may as well discuss how to breathe when we get there in 3 or 4 years!

 

[chillyinCanada]

I don't have a set breathing cycle for scuba. I've looked for more information on this, but everyone has always told me just to breath naturally and not think about it, which is really weird for as a former tuba/trombone player, and current marathon runner and martial artist. I've also done some mountain climbing and hiking at altitude. In those contexts, how you breath is really important, and "don't think about it" and "just breath naturally" is very bad advice.

Is "pause after exhaling" something you figured out on your own? Or part of something being taught that I have looked for but couldn't find?

For scuba, I usually try to breath until my lungs are completely full and then exhale until they are completely empty and repeat as slowly as I can without pauses. This seems efficient and is very relaxing, but it is different from how I breath naturally sitting at my desk typing.

Think.of it as meditative yoga breathing. As you said, it is very relaxing. Seems to me that you are breathing properly.

Weights maybe? How's your trim? And I'm sorry if you've already told us but what bcd are you using? Are you sure that you are horizontal in the water or is part of you more vertical?