Maintaining depth in blue water

[Lorenzoid]

Maintaining depth without a visual reference is surely one of the most difficult things to master in diving. I still can't do better than +/- 3-5 feet of my target depth on a blue-water safety stop in calm seas. Practice practice practice. It may take hundreds of dives before you can hold a stop, hovering in place, with +/- 1-2 foot accuracy. It's a little easier to maintain a depth while swimming, but even that takes practice. Good advice from others here.

 

[NorCalDM]

Thank you very much. I actually asked my buddy to keep depth and stay in my periferal field but that didn't work out. But I noticed I was having a lot of trouble just keeping my depth in itself. Do you control your depth with buoyancy or your finning?

If you have to fin to hold your depth and keep yourself from sinking your negative. As other have said good buoyancy skills take practice lots of practice. Try holding your depth without sculling at all and if you sink and have to add lots of air to your bc remove some lead and if you rise with no air in your bc add some lead because your too light. In shallower depths you are also compensating for the compression and expansion of your wetsuit if you are wearing one and the thicker the suit the more drastic the change.

 

[boulderjohn]

Well, you have certainly gotten a boatload of good advice in very short order. I just have a couple of comments.

By the time my depth gauge registers a change I'm already to far to change it with breath alone.

From this, I conclude that, as some others have said, you are overweighted, possibly by a lot. I do a demonstration in the pool (12 feet deep) with new students in which I add a random shot of air to my BCD and then go all the way to the surface and all the way back down again using nothing but my breathing to control the depth. I am overweighted by a few pounds when I do this. When I am dooing technical diving in the pool wearing steel double tanks, I am much more overweighted, and I cannot come close to doing that.

We can only control our depth through breathing if that breathing can overcome the effects of the expanding or contracting BCD and wet suit. The more air in the BCD, the harder that is to do. For every pound you are overweighted, you must add the volume equivalent of 15 fluid ounces to the BCD--roughly a pint.

The closer you are to the surface, the more the BCD expands or contracts with changes of depth. At the altitude in which I do the exercise above, the change in volume from bottom to top is 40%.

I actually asked my buddy to keep depth and stay in my periferal field but that didn't work out.

When students do the compass skills in the OW class, I have them do it in buddy teams, with one person working the compass and one person holding the depth. I do mean "holding." The buddy in charge of the depth holds the arm and pulls up or down as needed.

But I noticed I was having a lot of trouble just keeping my depth in itself. Do you control your depth with buoyancy or your finning?

If you are neutrally buoyant, you can hover without any movement of hands or feet.

 

[Storker]

IME, holding constant depth without a visual reference is one of the most difficult tasks there is. I don't have much of a problem staying at depth during my SS on a shore dive. In free water without a visual reference it's one of the most difficult tasks I encounter. Of course, it doesn't exactly help having two bubbles to manage (I dive dry)...

 

[Diver0001]

Thank you very much. I actually asked my buddy to keep depth and stay in my periferal field but that didn't work out. But I noticed I was having a lot of trouble just keeping my depth in itself. Do you control your depth with buoyancy or your finning?

I control it with buoyancy. Get it in the ball park with the vest and use your breathing to fine tune

R..

 

[PfcAJ]

I use two things (in no particular order).

There's always little particulate in the water. If you can kinda sorta focus on that it helps.

If my depth gauge changes, I swim up or down to correct it. Even like 1ft. Fix it before it gets out of hand. If I'm doing that in one direction repeatedly I adjust buoyancy a little.

SMB helps too.

 

[richboslice]

Thanks for all the responses everyone. I am going to check some stuff out and try some new techniques now. Definitely see that my initial interest in having my buddy help with depth was probably a good instinct. I should have been more insistent. I don't feel like I was over weighted. I only had enough weight to make me neutral with my 5/7 wet suit on my belt, 8 lbs. had about 2 lbs in each of my 2 trim pouches and 2 lbs in each dump pouch. I will pay better attention to the particulates for sure and convince my dive buddy to focus on depth and let me lead the direction. right or wrong. He kept wanting to correct my course which was very disruptive for my learning

 

[boulderjohn]

5/7 wet suit on my belt, 8 lbs. had about 2 lbs in each of my 2 trim pouches and 2 lbs

Everyone is different, but that would be a lot of weight for me.

 

[NAM001]

IMO when you start a dive with a full tank and doing a shallow dive you are asking for problems with depth control. Normally when you are at 15 ft you are at a safety stop and your bc is MT. As such you don't have the bc contributing to your depth control problem. with a full tank you are already probably 6 heavy and have to comp with the bc. Also remember your air volumn in the bc is 1/2 at 33 ft than at surface and it does not half again till 100 ft. so you depth variation of 3 ft at 100 is minimally effected by the air expansion in the bc. that same 3 ft at 15 feet is like 20 ft change at 100. And then it is added to by the gas expansion in the bc. To me being able to hover at 15 ft is quite an accomplishment with any air in the bc.

 

[billt4sf]

OP, your profile says you have 0 - 24 dives --not much to be able to do this!

I found that taking the GUE training really helped me to keep my depth while being task loaded, that is to do the basic skills. Practicing the skills in the pool while maintaining depth, and seeing the resulting video, was invaluable.

Also, once I got used to being able to dive with a minimum of weight, it makes everything much easier! It really helped me to dive in the same place, same helpful dive guide, same equipment, etc. over and over to get my weighting down.

- Bill