I Give up

[slipslop]

nah, i will never give up diving. I love it too much. i was really hoping my air consumption would improve when i did the Peak performance buoyancy course. admittedly there was a current running yesterday and it was difficult to empty all the air out of my bc, take a deep breath, wait 3 seconds add a small squirt of air into the bc, take a breath (repeated 5 times) while trying not to get swept away by the strong current. i was initially fighting the current but eventually just went with the flow.

as a previous poster advises,Perhaps i should hire some air and sit in the bottom of a training pool and see how long a tank actually lasts.

thanks for all your helpful replies

 

[cmcarver]

slipslop.

You don't want to give up! There are several things to try first. As the others have said, minimize your work underwater and try to breath in nice and deep then exhale slowly, taking 10-15 seconds to completely exhale. I'm sure others will have more great ideas.

Not only 10-15 on the exhale but try to get the inhale from 5-15 seconds also. There is no need to suck in air then start exhaling. Slowly suck the air into your lungs. This will allow the gases to be exchanged better than just IN and ouuuuuuuuuuuuuut.

Simple swimming will increase your air consumption. I did a pumpkin carving dive where I sank to the bottom and didn't move anything but my hands in small motions to design a pumpkin. In the 30 minute dive I used 700psi at 20' of an AL80. Try getting in the pool and just sit in the deep end with out swimming around.

I also find that the first dive I am nervious or anxious and breath heavyer so the first dive I try to be the first in the water and just breath thru my snorkle face down for a couple of minutes. This helped a lot.

 

[Ishie]

I'm a short female and when I started diving, I was doing the 24 minute dives on an 80 at 25'.

Lots of stuff helps. My dives on a PST HP 80 tend to be from 45-60 minutes now. My best dive time had me down with an 80 for 1:17, and that includes time fighting with the anchor and that had a max depth of 45'.

First off. I was struggling to get down because I was so excited about the dive that I was gulping air at the surface, which is apparently common. As a result, for my first 20 dives, I was using between 24-26 lbs to get to the bottom. I now use 14. That made a HUGE difference.

I used to do a lot of finning and fast finning because I wanted to "find stuff". I now see more stuff because it isn't like the seals are hanging out 75 yds away from you waiting to see if you'll find their secret gathering place. Now, I dive slowly.

Don't fight stuff at the surface. Find ways to work around it. This last weekend, I discovered the joys of clipping yourself off to the boat in heavy surface current. SO much nicer.

Be comfortable in your gear configuration. I was using an ancient SP jacket that did work quite well (for the 50 bucks I bought it for), but not wildly comfortable on me and made for a medium sized man, so it pressed in the wrong places, which increased my breathing rate. I swapped to a Transpac, which doesn't squeeze me anywhere. Air consumption went down.

Don't hang onto your inflator hose constantly. Using your breathing to hold your buoyancy uses far less air than constantly inflating, deflating. That's wasted stuff. Also, if you're overweighted (like I was), you often end up putting a lot of air into your BC that you now can't breathe.

Have a comfortable regulator. If breathing is work, you'll breathe harder.

If you have any habits that increase your breathing effort (like smoking), that can contribute.

If all else fails, get a camera setup . That more than anything else extended my dive time because I ended up spending the majority of dives doing a dead body impression on the bottom while trying to get the right shot of sessile life forms.

 

[00scuba]

i have 160+ dives and just got a dry suit. I noticed my air consumption increased a bit because it was something new i was doing and my comfort level was not 100%.....but I expect that to improve with every dive.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Here's an "air hog" story that may actually make you feel better. My advanced class dove last weekend and a DM candidate dove with me (I'm the instructor but not his DM instructor). He had a small DPV along so we were using that to hunt the AOW buddy pairs. Our average depth was 38 feet, max depth was 41 feet. The quarry water was 50 degrees according to my computer and we were both diving dry. We noticed one of the quarry attractions had fallen over so he took about 2 minutes to get it sitting upright again. I noticed he was heading for shallower water after 14 minutes and knew that meant he was getting low on air. Our total dive time for the dive was 21 minutes and that included the safety stop. Both of us had about 2750 psi to start and at the end of the dive he had 600 psi left while I still had 1600 psi. He's not overweight but he's a big guy. Actually I think he's one giant lung in a man suit. I have watched him exhale and he exhales about four times as much air as I do with each breath. I bet he could sink a dive boat with those bubbles if he exhaled from 100 feet.

He's good natured and we joke that you can see the sides of the tank quiver every time he inhales. He is just one of those people who needs a bigger tank to get more dive time. That doesn't make him a bad diver it's just a physiology issue. He hogs down a tank in the pool too he just has big lungs.

Just keep diving, get a bigger tank if you need to and keep working on relaxing while you dive. Maybe your air consumption will drop, maybe it won't but the less you worry about it and just enjoy what underwater time you have the happier you're going to be.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

i am thinking of giving up scuba diving. i am getting about 20 minutes of air time from a cylinder. I did my peak performancy boyancy course, got my weighting, buoyancy and trim just right yet i am still only getting 20 minutes dive time. When i started diving people told me my air consumption would improve the more i dived, well it hasnt and i am getting very frustrated. when i tell potential dive buddies my problem they just pair up with someone else, not that i blame them. maybe in the near future someone will invent a lightweight, double volume cylinder but until then i am giving scuba diving a miss

I had the same doubts when I was a relatively new diver. Looking back in my log book, the average dive time on my first 50 or so dives was about 25 minutes ... and many of those were to depths less than 40 feet!

I got so discouraged I asked my scuba instructor if I was really meant for this sport. He told me to hang in there, this was normal ... especially for larger or older people ... and that I should give it about 50 dives to start feeling comfortable and noticing an improvement with my air consumption.

He was absolutely correct.

There are many techniques that can help you improve air efficiency ... proper weighting, buoyancy and breathing control, finning techniques, trim ... and it takes practice to really master those skills, even after you've attended a class to learn them.

Give yourself some bottom time ... and most of all relax. It's not a competition to see who can stay down the longest, after all. Remember that you got into scuba diving to have fun ... so enjoy your time underwater, no matter whether it's a long time or a short time. It's important to practice your skills regularly, but balance your practice time with your sightseeing time so it doesn't become a chore.

And remember that this is the first time in your life that you actually have to think about your breathing control ... so don't obscess over it. Like any new experience, proficiency comes with practice.

Your air consumption WILL improve ... we're all been through the same thing you're experiencing.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Scubagolf]

I found that improving my ability to descend with less weight helped with my air consumption. This works in a couple of ways. First, not fighting to get down, of course, conserves air. Second, less weight at depth means you will need less air in your BC which will streamline and decrease air consumption.

Tips for getting down with less weight: relax, cross your ankles, and pull the neck of your wetsuit to let water inside the wetsuit just before you start to descend.

Another tip on decreasing air consumption is to use your snorkel when on the surface while waiting to descend rather than sucking air from your regulator.

Move (fin) slowly, inhale and exhale slowly and fully, and keep the hands clasped in fron of your chest or arms crossed.
Finally, there is nothing like more diving to increase your confort level which will moderate your breathing.

 

[ScubaFreak]

Another point,

What kind of air fills are you getting? Low air fills will knock down your dive time. Make sure you're getting a full tank each time!!

SF

 

[padrediver]

Another point,

What kind of air fills are you getting? Low air fills will knock down your dive time. Make sure you're getting a full tank each time!!

SF

Am I missing something here? No mention of cylinder size. No mention of
PSI at fill. Perhaps this person doesn't belong in the water in the first place?
Only goes to 18 meters? That's about 2bar/atm. Twenty minutes on an 80
is just a bit less than average on a 60 ft. dive.

 

[MoonWrasse]

i am thinking of giving up scuba diving. i am getting about 20 minutes of air time from a cylinder. I did my peak performancy boyancy course, got my weighting, buoyancy and trim just right yet i am still only getting 20 minutes dive time. When i started diving people told me my air consumption would improve the more i dived, well it hasnt and i am getting very frustrated. when i tell potential dive buddies my problem they just pair up with someone else, not that i blame them. maybe in the near future someone will invent a lightweight, double volume cylinder but until then i am giving scuba diving a miss

Try figuring out where you are blowing thru your air - i.e. is it on descent, on ascent, on swimming. One of the things I found was that I was using up too much air on descent, namely because I was focusing too much on ear equalization (I'm not an easy equalizer).

Another might be that your breathes are deep and short, on land try seeing how long your normal inhalation-exhalation cycle is. Just don't starve yourself of O2.

Keep at it, I think many people have something they have to work at (mask clearing, equalization, air consumption, etc, etc).