Why jump in the water and then float around?

[SNorman]

I like to go out on boats that have an upper sun deck. Then I can jump off the top and I am instantly at 15 feet and counting. If I have any problems, I can handle them when I get to the bottom where I sit down in the muck and kick silt up for the rest of the group. While I am sitting there, I use my rambo knife to dig up coral, swing at animals, whatever I can find to use my knife on. Last one down is a rotten gull egg!

That's nothing. The suckas are the ones who spend time on the surface *after* the dive. I fill my BCD to the max at depth and if I'm lucky I'll clear the water enough to grab onto the boat and hop in. We call it the "Polaris Ascent".

 

[Walter]

I have a feeling you will get over it. No need to get sensitive. I made my point.

Your point is you are either someone who is unconcerned with ethics and the truth or someone who doesn't understand how to use quotes. I assumed the second, now I fear I may have been mistaken.

At the risk of Pi$$ing off all of you veterans and pros...What the HE!! difference does it make? Who Cares and why?

Why does anyone make any post about improving others' diving skills? Because it helps you to become a better diver. That's my goal, isn't it yours as well?

(1) A proper bubble check can hardly be done out of the water. Also, leaks are less obvious while exhaling bubbles. Thus, it ought be done in water at the surface before descent.

Actually, it needs to be done underwater.

Nice answer Dan... I particularly like number three.

Which number three? The one that shows he's overweighted or the one that shows he's clueless about who's posting in this thread?

1. You dress in a wet suit, bake in the sun... then suddenly jump into the water.. ever seen what that does to your heart rate? Gas consumption? Sure you recover from it, but you just shortened your dive...

This is really a stretch. Let's assume I take an extra breath or two upon entry. You've popped much more than a couple extra breaths into your BC. Unless you orally inflated it, you've shortened your dive even more.

2. You have air in your suit, and you need to get it out before decending...

How are you going to do that with an inflated BC?

3. Last chance to check things before going down... I've had a helping DM go around and check everyone's air and turn it on.. only mine was already on.. so they turned it off. I hit the inflate button to check.. it worked.. I don't take a breath until I am ready to go in, and that worked.. next one did not.

Last check is on the boat. I avoid having the DM touch my valve. When it does happen, I reach back and check it myself.

4. I like diving.. always have, and I want each dive to last as long as possible..a relaxed entry... a relaxed decent.. relaxed dive... all good stuff.

I agree, but none of this has anything to do with inflating my BC before getting into the water.

Just another "elitist" post.

You seem to like that word. It seems to me you'd rather try to label things rather than try to learn and improve your abilities. With a little effort you can improve your skills.

For those that want to get down.. may I suggest the anchor trick..or just some heavy anchor chain. or really big rock... or 40 extra pounds of weights.. you just jump and go... saves many seconds on the time consuming decent.

This thread isn't about rapid descents, but if you'd like to start one, feel free.

I do not dive anywhere that requires a hot entry.

Why not?

I had adjusted the angle on my inflator hose on the wing. I thought I had properly tightened it. I jumped in, tried to pop a bit of air into the wing...nothing, turned out it had cross threaded and wouldn't seal. Had I not tried it out and just done a hot entry, I would have had to at least dump weights to get back to the surface, as it was I was struggling to stay up until I could grab the boat and get someone to look at it.

Sorry, but it's not clear exactly what you mean. The LPI hose or the BC inflator hose?

If the former, merely orally inflate the BC. Also wouldn't you have noticed it when you tried to inflate it prior to entry?

If the latter, how did you inflate it prior to entry? Why did you take it apart to adjust the angle, it only needed to be loosened? Why didn't you test it after completing the work?

Sometimes I'm on a business trip and have a chance to dive, but the only boats going anywhere are cattle boats. You're asked to all meet up at the surface before descending. OK, everyone's here: what are we waiting for? Then the dive leader starts giving a briefing again on the surface! Then someone says that they're feeling sick and want to get back on the boat, so you all wait for them to be loaded back on the boat. That's the kind of trip I hate!

Don't do guided dives, grab your buddy and go.

 

[alicatfish]

With my amount of experience I feel it necessary to take a moment to gather my thoughts before dropping below the surface. I find jumping from the boat a bit jarring to my senses, and I appreciate a moment to "re-group" with myself.

Also, I need to be able to control by descent to allow time for sinus equalization. I don't feel confident that I'd be able to stop my descent or to control it if I'm not in control to begin with.

But, hey, I do see your point and if that works for you then go for it.

To each his/her own.

 

[tonka97]

...Obviously nobody is saying always do it this way, the dive plan should meet the needs of the dive, occasionally hanging on the surface is no big deal and even serves for some fun time, just as often it winds being a dive killer. Experienced divers adjust, inexperienced divers force fit their PadI rule book dive template to every dive often with bad results. Anyways, see you on the anchor line.

N

As usual, another great post from Nemrod.

 

[Charlie99]

With my amount of experience I feel it necessary to take a moment to gather my thoughts before dropping below the surface. I find jumping from the boat a bit jarring to my senses, and I appreciate a moment to "re-group" with myself.

This is an excellent reason for pausing a while on the surface. Many new divers have high anxiety levels. A few seconds floating on the surface, getting used to being in the water, reviewing inflator/deflator operation one more time, and just generally getting mentally prepared is a good way to reduce anxiety levels.

Lengthy stays on the surface though, can become counterproductive as you get bounced around and fight waves. If there is very much chop on the water, I find that 15' is a much better place to pause, check gear for bubbles, and check out your buddy for any signs of discomfort or stress.

Charlie Allen

 

[Charlie99]

"So how many cubic feet of air were carrying that you were so negatively buoyant that staying on the surface was a struggle?"

This was my first dive with a wetsuit after a winter season with a drysuit. I used my dive log but I was using a aluminum verses ss backplate, single verses doubles and a SS STA. I made my best guess and was a bit overweighted, but not enough I couldn't fin and stay on the surface. But what would have happened had I gone to greater than 20-30 feet and loss the wet suit bouyancy?

What does buoyancy at 30' have to do with struggling to stay on the surface? If you have such a thick wetsuit that you will have a lot of buoyancy change from surface to 30', you will also have a lot of buoyancy increase from 10' up to the surface.

I stand by my statement that, if you have just a single 80 or 100 cu ft tank and staying on the surface is at all a struggle, then you are overweighted. Even if you were off on your weighting by 2 or 4 pounds, it still shouldn't have been very much trouble.

I suggest that you do a little experiment next time you dive, and stay on the surface for a little while with no air in your BCD. If you are afraid of plummeting to the depths, by all means enter with your BCD inflated, but then deflate it. If properly weighted you will find it very easy, nearly effortless, to stay on the surface.

 

[moxie]

Whatever works for you, personally, is best. I prefer to get in and get down, establishing contact with a buddy at 15' or so and confirming (or not) a quick OK sign at that point. You can't clear your ears any more on the surface than you could on the boat, so that is really a waste, IMO. If anything, all that splashing around just gets your mask fogged up, and bobbing up and down at or near the surface can actually cause ear blockages. But, again, if you prefer floating about on the surface before descending, do so. You get to set the rules on something like this that work for you.

 

[Ana]

Just about the full spectrum of responses. The one I liked the most was from the guy that jumps from the upper deck, goes all the way to the bottom and plays with his rambo knife. It was dissapointing that he didn't refer to the knife as a BFK, but he obviously got my point:

**Do not think, make up a procedure or take it from your instructor/mentor/whatever and do exactly the same ALL THE TIME regardless of the conditions. If anyone challenges your procedure, set the lah lah lah in your brain and just reply with an off the wall reasoning. The reasoning has to be possible not neccesarily probably but as long as there is a 1 in a million possibility use it. It will make you look like a good, responsible, mature and most importantly safe individual. Safety is a great keyword, it make you feel so warm and fuzzy inside and better than that: it exposes all those rogue/irresponsible/cowboy/angry/malo-malo/will-die-soon-hopefully divers that are such a pain in the behind insisting in thinking for themselves and doing what they think is best for the moment **

Another thing I got from here is the way we describe procedures that attack our comfort zone. A "hot entry" is from the first page of the military dictionary, are you guys from real? I am an angry person but here I'm not talking aggresion, if anything I'm calling for a smooth, peacefull (fluid if you will) motion.

I'm seating on the side of the boat, happy to be there, all geared up, drink the last bit of water from the water bottle, 2 reg. breaths while looking at the gauge, a look ahead to my husband sitting on the opposite side just as happy and ready to go. Bring your torso back while lifting your legs, feel the water and know that everything is good with the world (unless is winter, then you have to curse the temperature). Continue the movement, one of your hands was already on your face so now is pinching your nose softly as your legs direct you either down or to the anchor line at what ever speed you need.

If there is any agression on that, you guys need to take parchesse. Oh but what if this or that goes wrong? cono, do you wonder if you brought the homework entering the classroon or before you left the house. Guess what? even if you forgot the homework you can always TURN AROUND. If you can't turn around from 5 to 10 feet take parchesse.

Your procedure is the one that is agrresive, jumping down bouncing back up, inflating deflating. And what's with the air in the wetsuit? that was mentioned several times. I know I'm old but this one sounds priceless. You HAVE to take the air out of the wetsuit? what happens if you don't? does is get unbent? I take the air out of my DRYsuit in the boat and then pump some as needed to deal with the squeeze but the WETsuit? that chunck of neoprene is on its own.

With my amount of experience I feel it necessary to take a moment to gather my thoughts before dropping below the surface. I find jumping from the boat a bit jarring to my senses, and I appreciate a moment to "re-group" with myself.

Also, I need to be able to control by descent to allow time for sinus equalization. I don't feel confident that I'd be able to stop my descent or to control it if I'm not in control to begin with.

But, hey, I do see your point and if that works for you then go for it.

To each his/her own.

This response in my opinion has the best of all and the worst of all.
The begining shows the "best of all" for recognizing that he/she is not ready to do this get in and dive. It looks like he is willing to consider but during his training get in and float was the procedure used, so needs more time to figure was makes sense and what was BS from the instructor.

Then he goes on to reinforce why he has issues with the "different" ways, not so open minded anymore

The last 2 statements, the worst of all. The mind is closed, not a chance this will be considered.
Ofcourse it does include the patronizing love for freedom "to each his owm" very useful phrase when you want to say: this is ridiculous/insane/plain wrong.

I quoted this particular post but I could've taken similar content from many others on this thread.
Some people are set in their ways, but new divers have the opportunity to see with fresh eyes. Don't let the abused concept of "safety" get in the way of reason and logic. There are many types of dives and what applies for one, sometimes is ridiculous for other. Avoid the "I ALWAYS/NEVER" type of person, not many things happen always or never.

 

[Rockhound76]

Holy Cow...these opinions are bit surprising to me, but I'm an old fogey and don't really care what other people do in the privacy of their homes or on their dive boats...well, accept for:

1) Those who will NEVER dive anywhere that a non-bouyant entryis required will miss some great dive sites("hot" does sound a bit paramilitary, doesn't it?) . Those who insist their photo gear be hand-carried to them in the water on every dive are missing even more, as these can be great photo sites (the boats I'm talking about are 100'+ long and have dive platforms, but they are unsuitable for entry in rough water. My preference is to go off the relatively stable side and head to the bottom quickly rather than go off a stern moving 10' up and down, then swim back for more gear. That said, there are plenty of cases where I'm sure stern entries are fine and the water always calm. The local boats heading to the Flower Gardens require side entries and the freeboard heights do not allow gear to be easily passed down without a line.)

2) Outside of rebreather divers, tech divers with sling bottles, doubles and extra gear, I can imagine only very rare circumstances where a properly weighted diver would be so negative at the surface that a controlled descent would not be possible. (actually none, but I'm allowing that I missed something.) Log your weight with every setup (cameras, light, too) and include your own body weight in the log. You'd be surprised and how easy it is to estimate how much weight you need the next time you go out.

3) Everyone messes up every now and then.
a)I've had an inflator hose pop off at 20' (worked fine on the boat, but I didn't notice the lock ring was sticking). I orally inflated to neutral, swam up enough to hook it up properly and finished the dive. If the loss of auto inflation is a dive disaster for you, then you need more training. b) Jumped off the boat with no fins....no excuse. I was in a spearfishing tourney and in too much of a rush. It was actually good that I was "heavy" since I cleared the bottom of the boat as the heavy current carried me under it from my side entry (roll). No problem, I grabbed the trailing line, the deckhand got my fins and a good tip made sure no one else but my buddy knew. c) No weightbelt? Yup. I did that once at a place called Stetson Bank. My integrated rig was in for service and I was diving with borrowed non integrated system. The current was so horrific, I didn't notice the extra bouyancy until I was below 70' (hand over hand down the line). Well, if you like being on the surface and enter "light", that's not a problem. But, we had to go in to get below the current FAST. (it was so hard, you couldn't turn your face sideways to it without losing a mask.)

In my case, I forced myself down a feet before I even realized the lack of weight. Embarrassing? Yes. A problem? Not really. I used the same line to ascend. I DID NOT like bobbing around the boat, but I survived until someone lowered me a belt to roll into.

I don't think this ought to be an emotional issue. I don't really take exception to the way anyone dives on their boat or with their group. If anything, I find it all a bit humorous. (the Rambo dive image made me laugh out loud. I don't do that...I prefer det-cord and cyanide for my reef mayhem.)

I do take exception to anyone unwilling to broaden their safe-diving skillset, especially if I have to dive with them.

 

[mikerault]

On the boat I popped a bit of air into the wing, it seemed to be working ok but since the wing is on the back I went by sound and it sounded as though it was working. Unfortunately it was leaking out nearly as fast as it went in.

Since the tank was 4 pounds negative, the plate 2 pounds, the STA 2 pounds I probably should have only used about 8-11 pounds but I had sixteen based on previous dives using a 3mm full suit, but it was based on using a full jacket style BCD verse the backplate/wing.

Hindsite and armchairs make for the best second guessing.

Mike