Peak Performance Buoyancy

[The Chairman]

You have your OW students doffing/donning their BC mid-water in a pool? Wow,that's impressive. How deep is the pool and are they still mid-water once the task is complete?

Thanks for the kind words, but its really not that hard. The trick (and I hate to use that word) is getting the student to move UNDER the BC. I learned this when I made mention here on ScubaBoard that I was having a problem with students who have integrated weights doing this skill. I can't remember who suggested it, but the student undoes everything while prone which is the natural way to dive anyway. Then they move their left arm out and spin in that direction. Now, with the BCD on their stomachs, they can cut any entanglement or adjust their tank. Donning is as simple as spinning the other way and connecting everything up.

 

[oreocookie]

But lets face it, back inflate whether it be a back plate and wing or a traditional BC makes the skill easier.

I didn't realize how out of trim I was until I stopped renting jacket BCs and got a back inflate. I got in the water with it and thought "So THIS is what being horizontal feels like."

 

[Warhammer]

I'm not an instructor, but I bet if you polled instructors you would not find many that have OW students don/doff while suspended midwater. Kudos to you guys for going the extra mile with your students.

And I think you are selling yourself short if you dont think it's impressive to have all of your OW students completing that task.

 

[pixelpixie]

Thinking back to my O.W. cert. there was SO MUCH to learn. I paid an instructor to do a pool session with me for PPB. That helped incredibly. You can't expect to do everything the first time absolutely perfect. But controlling your buoyancy is paramount. Personally, I didn't care how long it took me, only how well I could learn and integrate. This is an essential skill. O.W certification, heck, any certification is like being a 00 agent....you've got a license to kill (yourself). So you gotta practice and learn. I don't know if I'll ever feel I've arrived. I hope not. I just know that I have learned to trust that I know what to do "under the circumstances."

What you need to read into my post and all of the above is that this has almost nothing to do with you. We learn at our own pace in our own way. The very best thing you can do for yourself is to know yourself. Then, you can enjoy and smile.

 

[RonFrank]

I think it's a bit harder to get buoyancy down when wearing 7-14mm of wetsuit, 20-34lbs of lead, and fresh water seems a bit tricky vs. salt. Than add the low vis into the mix and you start to get an appreciation for our environment. Add a drysuit into the mix, and it's just down home fun. You Tropical divers forget what we landlocked divers suffer through to get wet. I have been enjoying CA the past few years, but I am looking forward to tropical again as its been too long.

 

[gcarter]

I think it's a bit harder to get buoyancy down when wearing 7-14mm of wetsuit, 20-34lbs of lead, and fresh water seems a bit tricky vs. salt. Than add the low vis into the mix and you start to get an appreciation for our environment. Add a drysuit into the mix, and it's just down home fun. You Tropical divers forget what we landlocked divers suffer through to get wet. I have been enjoying CA the past few years, but I am looking forward to tropical again as its been too long.

I did my cert in Boracay,and while I was certainly no Jedi master after those 4 dives, I wasn't bad.

My 16 dives since have been in cold water, 7MM john and shorty, 5MM hood, boots, and gloves. I have used as much as 34 lbs in fresh, now down to 28 lbs (yay!) and 36 lbs in salt. At 20 dives I feel I am just getting back to where I was at 4.

Two big factors for me: getting over the anxiety induced by the claustiphobic exposure gear, and dealing with the bouyancy variations inherent in such heavy layers of neoprene.

With practice and experience, my bouyancy will get better, I will shed more weight, and my SAC will improve.

But I am not sure that any CW dive would have prepared me for the reality of the full kit of exposure gear in the quarry at 8C.

 

[The Chairman]

I know what you mean about diving in c-c-c-cold waters! Why, day before yesterday, the temps were all the way down to 77! Yee doggies! I almost had to put on one them thar new fangled wet suities. Later this week, I'll be up in Cave Country where the temps are a chilly 72 (I'm not lyin') freakin degrees! Yeah, me and cold water know each other well.

 

[Lobzilla]

I think it's a bit harder to get buoyancy down when wearing 7-14mm of wetsuit, 20-34lbs of lead, and fresh water seems a bit tricky vs. salt. Than add the low vis into the mix and you start to get an appreciation for our environment. Add a drysuit into the mix, and it's just down home fun. You Tropical divers forget what we landlocked divers suffer through to get wet. I have been enjoying CA the past few years, but I am looking forward to tropical again as its been too long.

Just wanted to remark that buoyancy control is a means to an end. The goal is to control our position in the water column and there are other ways to do this if we cannot gain control by changing our lung volume.

When we cork to the surface and are tempted to utter "Sorry, I lost my buoyancy (control)" we have to ask ourselves why we did not use our fins or our hands (hanging on to something temporarily) to fix that problem and get back into the depth window that we can control with lung volume. The water honestly does not give a rat's tail about our excuses but it responds very well to physical principles.

Buoyancy is always an unstable equilibrium in the presence of compressible volume. Sooner or later we will teeter on the edge and occasionally get a little beyond it. Whether we are a beginner or pile up neoprene for colder water or add a drysuit or dive a rebreather (where our lungs are largely useless for buoyancy control) or ... there will always be the point where we have to take a stand and show who is in charge of the dive - the equipment or the person diving it.

The difference in the conditions mentioned is the size of the depth window that we can control with breathing. In the best case scenario, no exposure protection and hardly any gas in the wing, I can control in excess of 40 feet just with breathing. In the worst case, rebreather with drysuit, I only have a foot or so of leeway before I have to add/dump gas to/from loop, wing or suit. But in all cases, the ability to understand the limits and the willingness to prevail makes a big difference.

 

[RU4SKUBA]

When I dive master openwater classes, I swim as slow as possible to force students to control their buoyancy.

I liked this comment so much I wanted to see it again. SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN! :mooner:

 

[CaveMD]

I liked this comment so much I wanted to see it again. SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN! :mooner:

It goes a long way to prevent shark buoyancy mentality