Mantra
Contributor
Hi all!
I've been lurking here for a few weeks and loving it. Thanks for a great community!
I have a question regarding safety stops. My wife and I are brand new OW certified, and are just looking to dive as much as we can for now to get our skills and comfort levels up.
We are lucky to have a lot of great, tropical diving here in Queensland, so finding nice spots is easy We are just back from a 3 day trip to Tangalooma resort where we put three OW dives in.
So my question - does anyone have any tips or hints about maintaining a 5metre safety stop in open water, in current, with no line to ascend along?
At the moment, the best thought we can come up with is to remain close, to keep neutral (we are working hard on buoyancy, which is no problem at depth but harder for us at 5m or shallower if there is a surge) and to watch our computers and adjust accordingly.
How much does it matter if you bob up and down a bit? I'm looking at a dive profile from a dive we just did and we are swinging between 4 and 6 meters like yo yos during a 3 minute 5 metre stop. With developing buoyancy skills I'm concerned about the possibility of champagne corking.
I much prefer coming up a line, but this won't always be possible where we dive (a lot of current, etc and often drift type dives rather than same entry/exit). I feel we need these skills to be really comfortable in local conditions. We just had an incident (no problems) where this was rammed home. I will elaborate if anyone interested, but this is long enough already! Any tips are appreciated.
I've been lurking here for a few weeks and loving it. Thanks for a great community!
I have a question regarding safety stops. My wife and I are brand new OW certified, and are just looking to dive as much as we can for now to get our skills and comfort levels up.
We are lucky to have a lot of great, tropical diving here in Queensland, so finding nice spots is easy We are just back from a 3 day trip to Tangalooma resort where we put three OW dives in.
So my question - does anyone have any tips or hints about maintaining a 5metre safety stop in open water, in current, with no line to ascend along?
At the moment, the best thought we can come up with is to remain close, to keep neutral (we are working hard on buoyancy, which is no problem at depth but harder for us at 5m or shallower if there is a surge) and to watch our computers and adjust accordingly.
How much does it matter if you bob up and down a bit? I'm looking at a dive profile from a dive we just did and we are swinging between 4 and 6 meters like yo yos during a 3 minute 5 metre stop. With developing buoyancy skills I'm concerned about the possibility of champagne corking.
I much prefer coming up a line, but this won't always be possible where we dive (a lot of current, etc and often drift type dives rather than same entry/exit). I feel we need these skills to be really comfortable in local conditions. We just had an incident (no problems) where this was rammed home. I will elaborate if anyone interested, but this is long enough already! Any tips are appreciated.