Uncontrolled descent

[fnfalman]

I love Eureka, agreed not a place to dirt dart... although if you watch your gauge you can swim down to 120' fairly quickly and then work your way up scraping scallops. ummmm...

The heck with the scallops. What about those mussels that are like 12" long?

I like the Three E's too. Nothing like hovering at around 90-100ft, looking around and don't see anything but deep blue water.

 

[vladimir]

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Great shot!

 

[mistressmotorsports]

My problem is not descending too fast, it is being barely able [and sometimes unable] to descend. If I am weighted in the average breath and empty BCD so I float with the water line at mid eyeball, I have a terrible time descending. I now have just over 20 dives. This is with an 8/7 mm hooded suit [we are diving in quarries in the midwest].

I find, if I check at the end of my best dives, during this weighting experimenting process, at the end of the dive, with the BCD empty and an average breath, my head is a foot or so beneath the surface. If I am weighted as you are supposed to be, at the end of a dive, as we approach the shore in reducing depth, once I get to about 8-10 feet I can't stay down. Too buoyant.

Once I get down far enough to compress the suit, then I descend fine. If I am not adding air to my BCD I will hit the bottom. The balance I want to achieve with respect to initial weight seems elusive.

I can start down, turn over and fin down, but that aggravates the ear equalizing thing, as it must happen quicker.

This is an interesting thread....

I don't think I saw it mentioned, but something else that can make an initial descent difficult, especially when wearing lots of exposure protection, is trapped air in your wetsuit, BC, etc. I know when it's cold out and I have my 7 mm plus 3mm hooded vest, plus... that I really need to turn over and swim down. It's amazing the bubbles that escape for quite a while on the way down. I can actually feel my hood trying to float off my head until I put the little purge valve on the top of the hood upwards and let it vent. I really have no idea if this is a significant amount of extra bouyancy or not, but I definitely notice a difference when descending with lots of wetsuit on versus a skin in warm water. I am neutral at the surface at the end of my dives in both cases, or MAYBE 1-2 pounds overweighted at most.

As for your issue, if you are properly weighted at the end of a dive (for me that is eye level with no air in your BC, 500 psi in your tank, legs crossed, lungs half full and not breathing - others use a slightly different formula,) you should be able to hang all day at 10 feet or so. If you can't, it might be some of the things others have suggested, like a feet down position when finning, a tendancy to hold air in your lungs, etc.

Mike

 

[AfterDark]

Made me think you can sink if your not careful.

How deep can do you dive? Oh, I'll go all the way to the bottom if I don't stop myself