Uncontrolled ascent - almost what to do?

[phoenix31tt]

I think you have a point. My breathing defiantly changed when I started to worry about my weight and if I had enough and then I used more air, and I did not want to continued because I was afraid of loosing control. So when I could not use rocks for extra weight I made the up sign.

Ok so what you are saying is you were worried about your weight BEFORE you went low on air... So correct me if in wrong this is the series of events:

⋅ started worrying about weight
⋅ breathing changed
⋅ used more air
⋅ surfaced


In other words you are saying that you were buoyant at depth (before you began to surface), and this is at close to 100ft?

This is even more baffling given the fact that you made dives previously with no issue... If you are that buoyant at depth BEFORE you run low on air after making dives with the same weight... Something beside weight is off...


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[Dhboner]

If you had trouble "staying down" at the end of the dive then one of two things were likely involved...either you were under weighted to begin with or you had excess air trapped somewhere in your rig (either in your wing or drysuit). Both those issues are training shortcomings. In my opinion no one should be at 98 feet without complete understanding of their buoyancy needs and the ability to almost completely vent their wing/drysuit. I know that does not answer your original question, but your original question hints of some more basic problems in your training to date. Instead of being defensive with the folks who are trying to help you out, you should seriously consider getting back into a confined water environment and do a proper buoyancy check with the exact gear you use regularly and practice controlled ascents while venting your wing and drysuit.

 

[BlueOcean2015]

This is was happened:
⋅ started worrying about my weight around 40 feet (on the way back)
⋅ emptied my BCD/ Dry suit for air
⋅ used more air
⋅ started taking rocks from the bottom
⋅ Made the up sign at 32 feet
⋅ Surfaced while holding on to instructor to slow down ascent rate

---------- Post added October 14th, 2015 at 10:00 AM ----------

. Instead of being defensive with the folks who are trying to help you out, you should seriously consider getting back into a confined water environment and do a proper buoyancy check with the exact gear you use regularly and practice controlled ascents while venting your wing and drysuit.

Yes, and that is what I am going to do. I have writing that several times now so that's why I don´t ask about that.
Its not my fault we have never done this basic skill in the course I was taking, but I do now I need work on that, and that's why I getting help from someone else.

 

[shoredivr]

What is the name of the course you are taking?

 

[danvolker]

Maybe a Dry suit just is not for the OP....Maybe the better solution is to ditch the drysuit, and to go with a semi-dry wetsuit, like the 7/8 mil Aqualung....and if the OP is in really frigid water, and the suit is not warm enough, then add the Thermolution heated undershirt.

Drysuits are not for everybody...and, arguably, with the semi dry, you could easily find your abilities in the underwater environments you dive in, to not only be much better than your own abilities with a Drysuit, but also at a significantly higher level than the dive buddies you are with. By this I mean, your SAC rate should be better, because you dont have nearly as much drag as you move through the water, and so your exertion is lower. ...Your ability to stay dead neutral is likely to be much better with the semi dry, and this will further impact the ease with which you handle your local dive site environments.
And the runaway ascent issue should be almost impossible with the semi dry--you can always swim downward, and even an inflator hose blowing is easy to disconnect.

So does the OP really need this "stinking" Drysuit?

 

[phoenix31tt]

I think one of the reasons we have been asking what course you were actually doing is because doing a weight check is not something that is required in all courses... especially not an advanced course unless your gear is changing...

and 40' is still a good depth to not be buoyant if you completed dives before

so are you going to tell us what course it is or what?...

 

[boulderjohn]

I took a lot of stones to try to keep myself down, but my instructor pushed it out of my hands. He was aware that I was to light and had difficulty holding myself down. After that he continued swimming and the depth got lower and lower and it became more and more difficult for me not to have an uncontrolled ascent.

This is was happened:
⋅ started worrying about my weight around 40 feet (on the way back)
⋅ emptied my BCD/ Dry suit for air
⋅ used more air
⋅ started taking rocks from the bottom
⋅ Made the up sign at 32 feet
⋅ Surfaced while holding on to instructor to slow down ascent rate

Thank you for this explanation. Before this, I read all of your posts several times trying to get this kind of a picture of what actually happened, and I could not picture it. the way it was previously described painted a very different picture. It was very hard to get an indea of when you started to have the problems--my sense was that it was happening at 98 feet, which was the part that made no sense to me and (I suspect) almost everyone else. If it only happened during the last part of the ascent, then the total depth of the dive is irrelevant, and what happened is actually very common.

So it is possible that you were underweighted at the end of the dive. It is also possible that you did not empty the air from your BCD/dry suit as well as you thought you thought you did. As you ascend, the air trapped in both devices will continually expand, and the closer you are to the surface, the more rapid will be that rate of expansion. When working with students, I find that trapped air is almost always the reason for buoyancy issues on ascent. Newer divers do not always have a good grip on the implications of the fact that the air bubble will move to the highest point in the suit or BCD, and if the bubble is not in the same place as the dump valve being used, it isn't going anywhere. It is common, for example, to see students hold their inflator hose down by their chests as they try to dump air, no matter how many times they have been told that the air will not travel down the hose to get to the exit point.

 

[vincent54]

That would be a good question. To be assisted at the end of the dive is disconcerting, even open1. You are potentially endangering another diver if you are that out of control. I like the Idea of a semidry until the weighting issue is figured out. In the meantime, go back to the basics until the skills are mastered. To me it sounds like it was a trust the buddy dive , not a course . Cheers