Yes, I've learned that if I start to fumble for inflator I'm usually in trouble. A quick pull on my inflator hose is a very good technique.
Let me tell a little story that you might find both amusing and instructive.
I was teaching a small OW class in Key Largo, and we were on our first OW dive. I had not had these students in the pool, so I was just getting to know them. We were diving in warm, shallow water, and I had them pretty well weighted. One of them was diving in very poor trim, with his head up and his feet below him, He kept rising up enough to have his BCD inflate enough to get him headed toward the surface.
On one such occasion, the rest of the class and I saw him about 10 feet above us, fumbling for his inflator hose so he could get back down to us. As so often happens, he found his snorkel instead. He held the bottom of the snorkel high over his head, pushed the bottom, and then sank down gently to join us. The rest of the class watched in amazement, their eyes wide as they looked at each other and to me in wonder.
When we talked about it later, I asked them why it was that he had been able to sink by pushing on the bottom of the snorkel. They eventually figured out that when he finally found the snorkel and thought he had the inflator, he had let out a great sigh of relief as he pushed the button. It was that great sigh of relief that had brought him down to us.
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