Using Air Fast

[skinfish]

Lat time I dove in Cozumel earlier this year, my first & second dives I ran out of air much quicker than others diving with me. This was the first time in the water for me in a year and I'm sure I was a little nervous. The DM had a long octopus that I used when I ran out so I did not make the group surface (luckily!). The following day and for the next three days, I breathed a bit more air than others I was with but not to the point that I was too low before anyone else so it worked out OK.

What can I do to not breath so deep or to use less air than I do? I do not want to be the guy on the dive that causes everyone to surface because I use my air too quick.

Any advice would be helpful & thanks in advance.

Doug

 

[detroit diver]

Doug,

Comfort, confidence, and experience will all lower your breathing rates. So will being in good physical shape.

Dive safe.

Lat time I dove in Cozumel earlier this year, my first & second dives I ran out of air much quicker than others diving with me. This was the first time in the water for me in a year and I'm sure I was a little nervous. The DM had a long octopus that I used when I ran out so I did not make the group surface (luckily!). The following day and for the next three days, I breathed a bit more air than others I was with but not to the point that I was too low before anyone else so it worked out OK.

What can I do to not breath so deep or to use less air than I do? I do not want to be the guy on the dive that causes everyone to surface because I use my air too quick.

Any advice would be helpful & thanks in advance.

Doug

 

[kalvyn]

Doug,
Comfort, confidence, and experience will all lower your breathing rates. So will being in good physical shape.

To this I will add "hold still". The more one moves about or swims hard, the more air one uses. I like to move as little as possible, I find this really helps decrease my air consumption, in combination with the things detriot diver mentions above. Just remember that there are truly no shortcuts, only practice will make you get better. I beat myself up really bad early on over my air consumption, and even now with over 200 dives is it even getting near to where I am happy with it. Patience and practice.

Jimmie

 

[skinfish]

To this I will add "hold still". The more one moves about or swims hard, the more air one uses. I like to move as little as possible, I find this really helps decrease my air consumption, in combination with the things detriot diver mentions above. Just remember that there are truly no shortcuts, only practice will make you get better. I beat myself up really bad early on over my air consumption, and even now with over 200 dives is it even getting near to where I am happy with it. Patience and practice.

Jimmie

Thank you both for the advice. I figured it probably had to do with inexperience because I did notice that as I dove more on my last trip, the less air I used. The first dive was the worst and I know I was nervous because it was the deepest dive I had done at the time. Fear of the unknown and a lack of confidence.

Someone needs to email my wife and tell her what I have been telling her for the last year, I need to dive more frequently!

Thanks again,

Doug

 

[Iruka]

Another thing is to work on your buoyancy...a lot of new divers expend a lot of energy/air by kicking/sculling to maintain their depth, rather than just their lungs/bcd. Yesterday on my day off, (I work in diving) I went diving, ha ha. Only brought 1 tank to the boat, for my "deep" dive. 2nd dive I just grabbed an 80 with 100 bar/1500 psi (left over from a tiny female instructor friend of mine) and did 64 minutes on it....and I'm (unfortunately) over 90kg/200 lbs at the moment, so big guys CAN dive a long time, with practice. (Of course, I have about 5,070 dives, so that's a LOT of practice.) One way to "cheat" if it looks like your air consumption on a particular dive is going to bring the whole group up early, which, understandably, you don't want to do, is just do the dive 8m/25' or so shallower (assuming you and the dive guide are comfortable with this arrangement) than the rest of the divers, thereby reducing your air consumption. (Air density is doubled at 33', tripled at 66', and so on.) Good luck, most people are fast on air starting out!

 

[Scubaguy62]

Lowering your gas consumption is much the same as refinishing a piece of wood; first you sand it with coarse sandpaper, then you finish it with fine.

Slowing your movements, making sure you're properly weighted, not smoking, being in good physical shape are what I would tackle first (the coarse sandpaper); to fine tune it (the fine sandpaper), set your buoyancy with your BC, then adjust it with breath control; breathe from partially full lungs, not from empty lungs; inhale, pause (hold with your diagphram, not by closing your epiglotis), exhale, then repeat. Above all, dive, dive, dive. Breath control is rarely mastered without diving; it's one of those skills that requires practice and drill to master.

Good luck!

 

[Mako Mark]

one thing you may find is that you use up to half your air in the first quarter of the dive. This is very common, try to take the time to slow everything down and get your breathing under control BEFORE you submerge, you can even do this on the boat beforehand..

 

[ChillyWaters]

one thing you may find is that you use up to half your air in the first quarter of the dive.

This is probably enhanced because the tank is cooling in the water -- dropping the pressure.

- ChillyWaters

 

[Kim]

one thing you may find is that you use up to half your air in the first quarter of the dive. This is very common, try to take the time to slow everything down and get your breathing under control BEFORE you submerge, you can even do this on the boat beforehand..

Mark beat me to it 'cause that's what I was going to say! I had this problem exactly - starting with 200 bar and only having 150/160 left by the time I got to the reef! :11: All the excitement at the beginning of the dive consumes a lot of air if you don't watch out. As Mark said - now I hit the water and control my breathing as much as possible at the surface. Try to make your decent as effortless and relaxed as possible - I just let myself sink slowly without trying to swim down. You can start on the boat as well, but I find that the exertion of walking in fins to the entry point is enough to make me breathe a little faster and raise my heartbeat a little. Let this all subside again before you submerge. It's the same thing sometimes in currents and you have to swim from the back of the boat to the anchor line. That can also pump you up a bit. When you get there - stop and rest until your breathing slows again - remember it's not a race!

 

[pete340]

This is probably enhanced because the tank is cooling in the water -- dropping the pressure.

Not enough to pay attention to. Going from 30 degree C. air to 0 degree C. water is about a 1% change in absolute temperature (add 273 to the C temperature to get absolute, or Kelvin, temperature), so the result would be about a 1% change in pressure.

Edit: of course, a 30 degree change in a 300 degree temperature is 10%, not 1%. Sorry, Chilly, you're right: that's worth paying attention to.