Sucking down a tank quickly
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Psode27
Registered
I have been certified just less than a yr with 30ish dives. I sucked a lot of air early on, still do compared to more experienced divers... but as others have said before just find a way to relax more and pretty much use your legs only. Streamlining and not using arms unnecessarily. It makes a really big difference! I have noticed my down time increase quite a bit. Hopefully it keeps getting better! good luck and stay safe!
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Sent from my Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk 2
Conversely, if you do, go ahead and carry one. But realize that most of us don't really have a good grasp of our own skill level and get an outside opinion first. (I've carried a camera on nearly every dive since day one. It's not the focus of my dive though and it's a point and shoot type, not a giant rig ... yet.)
DiverDean59
Contributor
This really helped me. By concentrating on finding marine life in odd places and looking for the small things, I was naturally able to relax. I once observed a hermit crab in surge. By concentrating on the hermit crab, the surge did not stress me out.
Have fun and the air consumption will eventually get better.
The bottom line on gas consumption is that you HAVE to breathe enough to get rid of the carbon dioxide your body is making -- and how much CO2 you make is directly related to how much you move.
Many others in this thread have recommended slowing down and swimming less. Not only will it help your gas consumption, but you will also begin to see a lot of critters you miss when you are moving. Sea life makes extensive use of camouflage for survival, and if you move too fast, you won't spot things that are trying not to be spotted. Once you begin to key in on shapes, colors and movement, you will find that even a small area of reef often has more on it than you can really absorb in a dive.
But not all movement underwater is for the purpose of propulsion (and in your case, your father was doing the same swimming you were, but using less gas). A LOT of movement on the part of novice divers is simply to combat instability. If your tank is sliding around on your back, you are likely to be using your hands to avoid turning turtle. If your gear is put together so that you tend to adopt a feet-down position in the water, then when you swim, you push yourself upward in the water. The only way to avoid surfacing is to keep your buoyancy negative enough to counteract the upward kick. But then, of course, if you STOP kicking, you sink . . . so people with this problem swim constantly and cannot stop to look at anything.
If I were to recommend a few simple things to cut your gas consumption, they would be these:
1. Get your overall weighting close to correct. A pound or two too heavy is not a big deal, but ten pounds is.
2. Work on your posture underwater. Lots of people want to bend at the hips (the position in which you sit in a chair), which tends to rotate you feet-low. Get a nice straight line from the shoulders to the knees. It will help your stability.
3. Once you have #2 down, balance your equipment. Move weight around until you can hover in a horizontal position without much sculling. This will allow you to dive truly neutral, which massively reduces your energy expenditure.
4. Make sure your BC fits well and holds the tank steadily in the middle of your back. That will help get rid of the hand-waving and sculling.
5. Only when all the rest of those things are done, is it time to think about your breathing pattern. Breathing on scuba should be mildly deeper and slower than breathing on land, but not huge breaths. What you want to avoid is a rapid, shallow breathing pattern, which wastes gas.
Many others in this thread have recommended slowing down and swimming less. Not only will it help your gas consumption, but you will also begin to see a lot of critters you miss when you are moving. Sea life makes extensive use of camouflage for survival, and if you move too fast, you won't spot things that are trying not to be spotted. Once you begin to key in on shapes, colors and movement, you will find that even a small area of reef often has more on it than you can really absorb in a dive.
But not all movement underwater is for the purpose of propulsion (and in your case, your father was doing the same swimming you were, but using less gas). A LOT of movement on the part of novice divers is simply to combat instability. If your tank is sliding around on your back, you are likely to be using your hands to avoid turning turtle. If your gear is put together so that you tend to adopt a feet-down position in the water, then when you swim, you push yourself upward in the water. The only way to avoid surfacing is to keep your buoyancy negative enough to counteract the upward kick. But then, of course, if you STOP kicking, you sink . . . so people with this problem swim constantly and cannot stop to look at anything.
If I were to recommend a few simple things to cut your gas consumption, they would be these:
1. Get your overall weighting close to correct. A pound or two too heavy is not a big deal, but ten pounds is.
2. Work on your posture underwater. Lots of people want to bend at the hips (the position in which you sit in a chair), which tends to rotate you feet-low. Get a nice straight line from the shoulders to the knees. It will help your stability.
3. Once you have #2 down, balance your equipment. Move weight around until you can hover in a horizontal position without much sculling. This will allow you to dive truly neutral, which massively reduces your energy expenditure.
4. Make sure your BC fits well and holds the tank steadily in the middle of your back. That will help get rid of the hand-waving and sculling.
5. Only when all the rest of those things are done, is it time to think about your breathing pattern. Breathing on scuba should be mildly deeper and slower than breathing on land, but not huge breaths. What you want to avoid is a rapid, shallow breathing pattern, which wastes gas.
That's exactly what the "and/or" means. (Either way, you need to have your buoyancy control dialed in.)
GrumpyOldGuy
Contributor
Lots of great advice here. Consider stopping using the flutter kick and switch to a frog kick. The flutter kick can move you faster through the water, but it burns a log of gas with those big muscles in constant use. The frog kick tends to push you to kick and glide at a slower speed and thus burns less gas. It does feel weird and slow at first, but long term its a great skill.
T.C.
Contributor
This is complete Bull$hite.
JRA2000TL, don't EVER let someone else tell you, "don't dive with so-and-so equipment until X number of dives", unless they are someone you are paying them for their opinion! Some divers at, say, 500-999 dives, will not be the equal of others at 0-24.
It is utter Bull$hite to think that someone else knows your skills better than you and your instructor. You two, and ONLY you two, are best suited to decide your gear and what diving you should do. A camera is not tech diving; it is not manifold doubles with slung deco bottles; it is not a rebreather. It is a frigging camera. You can go out and use one right now if you want. It doesn't require a class, or some arbitrary number of dives to use first.
There are alot of useless Scuba Cop wannabes out there, just waiting to tell you that you're not good enough. You just met one.
Don't listen to them.
T.C., I disagree with you quite strongly.
One of the things that gets new divers into trouble is lack of bandwidth, that results in ending up deeper than they want to be, or lost, or not monitoring their gas. We all have only so much bandwidth; add a camera to a new diver, and you have reduced the amount he has to pay attention to his depth, his dive time, his buoyancy, and his navigation. The result is low on gas situations, buoyancy mistakes that damage reef, and buddy separations.
I firmly believe that one should not go diving with a camera until one's basic diving skills are well-formed. That said, we encourage our AOW students to do an underwater photography dive. Our purpose for doing it is for them to realize how much the camera degrades their buoyancy control and their situational awareness. Most students figure it out.
One of the things that gets new divers into trouble is lack of bandwidth, that results in ending up deeper than they want to be, or lost, or not monitoring their gas. We all have only so much bandwidth; add a camera to a new diver, and you have reduced the amount he has to pay attention to his depth, his dive time, his buoyancy, and his navigation. The result is low on gas situations, buoyancy mistakes that damage reef, and buddy separations.
I firmly believe that one should not go diving with a camera until one's basic diving skills are well-formed. That said, we encourage our AOW students to do an underwater photography dive. Our purpose for doing it is for them to realize how much the camera degrades their buoyancy control and their situational awareness. Most students figure it out.
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