Just call me a cork or dork. . .they both apply . . .

[BettyRubble]

TS&M is exactly right about the anticipation part. As soon as you decide to go up, start dumping a little air and take a deeper breaths - you will start to ascend. Watch yourself as not to hold your breath but just breathe deeper. Once you go up a few feet, level off and hover for a while.

The hover thing after a few feet is a good point. Even when I'm ascending correctly I find that I still ascend a little quicker then I'd like so I will focus on doing a few feet then hover, few feet, then hover.

So if you come up on fumes because one of them screwed the pooch and you had to donate, how is your weighting?

Poor pooch . . . well this is a good question . . . one of the ways I think I know I am slightly overweighted is I feel overweighted at the end of the dives . . . . so I assume that's because I am coming up with more then the typical 500 lbs of air and I'm weighted for the assumption I'll be coming up with less air. I'll do the free flow thing this weekend and confirm that though.

Yeah, I'm still hoping to stick those stops - one day

I was told of one advantage of horizontal for ascent/descent; you're moving a larger profile through the water than if you're vertical, so the water resistance to you moving is higher if you're horizontal. That helps slowing you down, giving you more time to react, vent etc.

When I started trying to descend horizontal I noticed a difference immediately. When I am able to do it, it is easier to get to correct buoyancy AND my ears are easier to clear . . anytime I am wonky at the beginning of the dive and therefore don't descend horizontally it drives me batty. This is also how I know I am over weight, once I descend to about 8 feet I am a sand dart. So hopefully all these tips will help me so I can drop another pound or two.

I had similar problems until recently. I had 14 lbs for my suit and worked pretty good except towards the end when my AL80 got light. So I figured I have it weighted just right. Until this Saturday when at the second dive I forgot to move my 4lb tank weight from used to full tank and went diving with 10lbs. Mid dive I realized that I forgot to move the weight and that I am diving with 10lbs. (This was my dive #45.)

At the end of that dive I stayed down at around 20ft until I dropped well below 500psi and I managed to still stay down without drifting up.

So good thing for me is that I realized I didn't need those 4lbs. On top of that at 15-20ft I don't need any air in my BC. So this works better. Makes me happy.

I took couple of dives yesterday with 10lbs and works good so far. I am happy.

I think if I can master the cork issue and drop a pound or two, I'll have my sweet spot. I dive steel 72 or 80's though. I can not stand alumnium tanks - except the super 80's which are hard to find. THe super 80's are shorter and fatter and need less weight compensation then the other AL's I've dived. As a 5'2 diver, it is so uncomfortable to dive with 'long' tanks as they hit me in the head and arse at the same time

 

[charlesg3]

...
I had such great buoyancy for all my dives in saltwater that I thought I had mastered things (those were my dives 10-21 too!). Then I got back to cold fresh water in a 7 mil and it all went to hell in a hand basket.

Buoyancy is much-much harder with all that neoprene as it really exaggerates everything... you start to rise, it expands and makes you rise faster... likewise for sinking (except it compresses).

Like others said, anticipation helps. I generally like to stay horizontal most of the time, however on those last 10-15 feet I like to approach head-up (and hand up as high as it goes with the self inflate / air release button in hand). This helps make sure there's nothing over head and if there is you hit it with your hand, not your head.

I also second TSandM's advice on a slight amount of extra weight (1-2lbs) just to make it easier, sometimes I've found it's a little more difficult to get that last little bit of air out of my wing so by not having it be the very last bit does give me a little leeway.

My method is basically once I get to 10-20 feet (or after the safety stop) I'll dump a bit of air in anticipation while going vertical... dumping the air makes me slightly negative at which point I then use slow small kicks to go up a little higher. Again though, it's all about fighting that expansion of the exposure protection. If I start to rise too fast, then I dump more air until I can establish neutral buoyancy (at whatever speed you're ascending at, between 10-20 feet it's NOT a problem if you stop, but it IS a problem if you rocket to surface). After I re-establish neutral buoyancy I start the process again.

This probably makes it sound more complicated than it is but practice is the real key. And remember, all that practice with the 7mm exposure protection will make you a buoyancy expert for the warm-water dives.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

p.s. If you have any problems descending, check out this thread by NWGratefulDiver (bob):
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...7991-goin-down-descent-tips-newer-divers.html

 

[Puffer Fish]

Interesting thread...am a bit surprised by some of the comments.

A couple of suggestions:

1. Most people go up too fast....if you have an anchor line, or a line that is tight to follow... do the hand over hand trick from say 35 ft on up....and stop every so often and see how your buoyancy is, then continue on up.. as I almost always have a lot of air left, and on a safety stop my sac rate tends to be around .25... a typical accent from 80 ft might be 10 minutes (including the safety stop)... I get to practice buoyancy stuff... play with breathing effects...watch all the odd clear bodied animals go by...it is all fun.

2. Have someone check that you are getting all your air out of your BC (BP/W). You should just sink at your safety stop, if you try .. if you don't, you don't have enough weight.. remember proper weighting is for when you are at your safety stop, with a very low tank... not when you at at the bottom , or the tank is full.

My drysuit is self venting...and is much easier to hold a safety stop in than a heavy wetsuit is...holding a safety stop with 14mm of neo on your core... in surge... and I know of no one that does that easily.

 

[Blackwood]

Poor pooch . . . well this is a good question . . . one of the ways I think I know I am slightly overweighted is I feel overweighted at the end of the dives . . . . so I assume that's because I am coming up with more then the typical 500 lbs of air and I'm weighted for the assumption I'll be coming up with less air. I'll do the free flow thing this weekend and confirm that though.

Certainly a good idea. I do it whenever I make a change to my gear that will likely have an effect (thicker undergarments, different wetsuit, whatever).

 

[TSandM]

Betty, I don't know what you are diving, but I'm 5'4" and balance out LP95s and HP130s beautifully. (I love the 130s -- they just trim out by themselves.) Neither tank annoys me as much as an Al80 does, in terms of sitting on my butt.

 

[udtfire]

ok its simple you swim to the level you need and then get nutral , dont use the bcd as a control it is a compensator. at the early stages new divers find it a little easier about 5 lbs over weighted. the problem is not solved on the asscent it is solved on the descent . let air out of you bcd until the crown of your head goes under water the get of the low pressure inflator and start exhealing pushing your nose forward this will give you a slow descent rate when you are ready to swim up the look at you depth and let a little airout swim up and ADD air at the stop depth

the problem may also be in your kick if you are kicking like riding a bike then your not stable enought in the water colum and you start diving in the reaction mode instead of the proactive mode hope this helps ps learn to hover and get nutral in a 4 ft pool and you worries are over hover in a 4 ft pool youcan hover anywhere

 

[BabyDuck]

also, betty, if you'd rather dump from the shoulder, remember you can 'lean' up and use the inflator hose dump (not by pulling, but by pushing the button) if you hold the hose higher than your shoulder. it's more of a roll to get that side up than a total-90-degree-upright thing.

you'll get it soon! you're really close.

 

[BettyRubble]

ok its simple you swim to the level you need and then get nutral

Ok thanks! I'll remember that it's simple . . .

 

[TSandM]

Betty, don't worry about it. People to whom this came naturally think it's simple. For those of us who find it challenging, it's not. But the one thing that's certain: Anxiety floats. When you worry about your buoyancy, your breathing changes and you make yourself more positive, and most of the time, you're so focused on the suit or the wing or whatever that you don't even NOTICE the breathing change.

One thing that was repeatedly recommended to me, and which did seem to help fine tune my buoyancy (long after the gross problems of corking were pretty much gone) was deliberately to spend time hanging in midwater. I don't know whether the ascent issues you are having are coming up an ascent line, on free ascents, or ascents upslope, but if it's mostly in midwater, try just planning to spend the 15 minutes of your dive doing stops at 30, 20 and 10, and just sitting there for a full five minutes. At the beginning, it will be hard, and you'll yo-yo, but if you keep it up, eventually you'll learn how to relax and you'll stabilize. Doc Intrepid told me, three plus years ago, that 90% of buoyancy is mental, and he was right. When I stopped psyching myself out, things got much better.

 

[Walter]

I finally figured out (with the help of my buddy - thank you Rich!) that in order for my shoulder dump to work properly, that I must tilt myself so that shoulder is the highest point and the air bubble will escape from that valve.

I hate poorly designed, air trapping BCs. Good thing you figured out you had one and knew how to compensate.

Sounds like you have it figured out, you just need more practice. I'd recommend several dives at 15 feet or shallower.