Something's wrong with my bouyancy?

[ginti]

We did all these while kneeling on the ocean floor ...

In this case, it's unsurprising that you have difficulties with buoyancy, and it isn't your fault. Personally, I would look for another instructor who teaches everything while neutrally buoyant.

You'd be surprised by the number of divemasters that went at me (and often my dive buddies) with "Omg! are you sure you're certified??? when? where?" when we grabbed the boat line to do SS

They have been very unpleasant people and very unprofessional.

EDIT: people sometimes can be cruel without wanting or realizing it, and maybe these DMs who criticized you were in good faith... but their comments were inappropriate. You are a new diver and you just need to learn, that's perfectly fine please, do not let those comments bring you down

 

[formernuke]

@alex_can_dive

Your brand new to a very complex sport. What you need to do in practice and play, figure out what weight you need and where it goes. Sadly this comes with pratice.

Where in MA are you?

 

[lowwall]

You might look into a PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy or SSI Perfect Buoyancy. A few hours working with a good instructor on bouyancy, weighting and trim will make all your diving more enjoyable and safer.

Preferably with a different shop than you did your OW with. This is all stuff that should have been covered in OW, but unfortunately a lot of courses still do the overweight and skills on the bottom thing.

Maybe someone familiar with your location will recommend an instructor. Or you can make a new thread.

 

[formernuke]

Maybe someone familiar with your location will recommend an instructor. Or you can make a new thre

Better idea meet local experienced divers first, wink

 

[lowwall]

Better idea meet local experienced divers first, wink

Absolutely if you can find a someone with experience, knowledge and patience.

You have a buddy that meets those qualifications?

 

[formernuke]

Absolutely if you can find a someone with experience, knowledge and patience.

You have a buddy that meets those qualifications?

I might know one or two, rofl

 

[ginti]

Better idea meet local experienced divers first, wink

Absolutely if you can find a someone with experience, knowledge and patience.

Three letters agencies coming soon

 

[CT-Rich]

I haven’t read the last couple of pages of this thread, but here are my 2psi. 80% is a skills issue, 20% is gear issue. I wear half my weights on a belt diving wet, half in my BCD. A belt is a small investment. You probably never saw a wet suit diver with ankle weights, they are so far from your center of mass, they will make you feet-down, the absolute worst thing in most diving (near the reef, near the silt). A belt will move some (or all) of your ballast behind your BCD when level.

Do a proper weight check at the end of a dive. At the beginning, there will be air trapped in the suit and not just in big bubbles, but also in the fabric. Have someone hand you weights one at a time and drop them into a pocket until you are eye level with the water. Add that amount to you belt for the next dive. Suit compression will definitely make you negative at depth. There is no shame if you are more comfortable with an extra couple pound as a new diver. When you feel comfortable in the water you can lose them.

you shouldn’t need to buy any new gear, just get used to using what you have. Maintaining your orientation in the water is not passive. Watch the perfect trim demonstrations on YouTube. The fins are always moving a little bit. Those guys have their gear dialed in and have lots of practice, but if held perfectly still, they would slowly tilt or rotate. You can adjust your orientation by bending your knees or extending your arms. A certain amount of flailing and hand skulling as a newbie is normal. You may not look elegant to start.

Rule number one, have fun. Few people look elegant or have perfect trim day one. Most of your problems go away because you stop thinking about them with experience. Keep your feet off the reef/silt and pay attention while enjoying the dive

 

[FinnMom]

Most new divers have trouble wi

That's trim, not buoyancy.

I feel for you. I had a devil of a fight with bouyancy control and esp. floaty feet after switching to a drysuit. I struggled and struggled (meaning practised and practised), and when I had just about decided that ankle weights must be necessary, the problem just vanished. I guess I finally got it right because after that muscle memory made it no longer a big challenge at all. I did switch to shorter, heavier fins though (already at the very start of the battle, so this was not the solution although it may have been helpful), and have liked these new fins very much. I think the stiffer fins make it easier to control my position with just slight fin tip movements, at least they feel like I have sharper control than when I wear ordinary fins.

If you switch to doing only a frog kick and keeping your knees bent or mostly bent, you may find it remarkably much easer to control your tendency to teeter-totter, that is to pitch or go nose up/down (all 3 intended to describe the same thing). Once you get your fins up above bent knees and start learning how to use the fins to go forward in a frog kick, you will also start to notice how you can move just one foot to keep yourself from rolling (or to helicopter turn) and just a bit from the tips to prevent the kind of pitching (nose up/down) you describe. Being all streched out as in a butterfly kick makes it much too easy to get floaty feet.

You might find it helpful to practise being horizontal on dry land, even lying on your living room floor, so you get a proper idea of what the position feels like and can better judge whether you are horizontal or not underwater.

 

[FinnMom]

Update: in a shore dive today, I was able to descend with 10lbs in the pockets + 1lb on each leg - I stayed completely still and just let myself sink. I found that the weight on the legs help me stay vertical (before, with 12lbs total in pockets, I tend to flip on my back due to the heavy tank + weights sliding to the back of the pockets - and once i'm on my back, I'd just keep floating up.)

Much more comfortable at the bottom with less weight. However, it was a bit tiring to kicks with heavy ankles ...
maybe I could move them up to my thighs hmm....

Some BCDs have small velcro-sealed trim pockets up high on the back. I have used these with SEAC BCDs (each can hold max 1kg) and found them helpful myself, and with students.