Bouyancy

[Steve Summers]

Hi SD,

It sounds to me like you have decent trim and a good foundation for excellent buoyancy control.

As others have said do what is comfortable for you, TBH if your not sinking why do you need to put air in your BC? and in my experience getting divers not to put their legs down is the hard thing

Listen to all that you are told by your club peers but don't assume that what they say is gospel.

Good luck.

Safe diving,
Steve

[MartyC]

Don't change a thing mate (except perhaps the council of the "experienced" diver )

Ditto, sounds like you've got it licked - stick with it

[HP]

It would perhaps be a bit more constructive to give you a step by step account of why what you're doing is absolutely correct (in spite of the advice you're getting to the contrary)

Buoyancy is the hardest thing to get right in diving and getting good at it is very much a matter of experience and just diving a lot until it becomes second nature. However IMHO there are several things that can accelerate this learning curve and help you to progress farther, faster:

Firstly: correct weighting. Most people in my experience tend to dive overweighted when they first start out. This is the hardest time to be overweighted because for every kilo of unnecessary weight that you carry - you will have to put an extra litre of air into your BCD to remain neutral. Three kilos too much and you'll have three litres of air expanding and contracting inside your BCD making buoyancy control a nightmare.

You say that you need very little air in your BCD when you're on the bottom of the pool which would tend to suggest that you're weighting is spot on - but the following may help you to understand why you're right:

The aim is to have just enough weight to enable you to stay down when you have 50 bar left in your tank and you're holding your safety stop (don't forget you'll breath about 2.5 kilos of air from the tank during the course of your dive which you'll need to allow for and this is the reason why it's always best to do a weighting check with a nearly empty rather than full tank - ie: you get lighter towards the end of the dive)

The standard PADI weight check is fine for checking you weighting: ie: you should be able to let all the air out of your BCD with a full breath and float at mask level in the water. When you let the breath out - you should start to sink slowly. There are three problems with this weight check - all introduced by the diver doing it! Firstly remember not to fin while you're doing it - if you do it pushes you upwards and makes you artificially light. keep your legs still or crossed to stop you from moving them. Secondly: most new divers are nervous about taking the full breath out just as they sink. Your lungs hold about 6 litres of air - if you only take half a breath out - your check will be 3 kilos out! Take a deep breath out. Thirdly: make sure you're doing it with all the air dumped from your BCD - "most" of it is not enough

Your instinct is that being horizontal in the water is correct - you're absolutely right for several reasons:

Anything other than horizontal and your fins are pushing water down as well as backwards. Only when they're pushing directly backwards are they working most efficiently - anything else is a waste of energy and air. If you're head up and legs down as has been incorrectly suggested to you as "correct", then a large amount of force is being pushed downwards which will push you up in the water column as well as forwards. You will compensate for this by having too little air in your BCD to keep you "level" in the water. The moment you stop moving - you'll start to sink because you're actually "negative". Again a very common trait in new divers and it really hinders you feeling whether your buoyancy is correct or not. It tends to mean that you're constantly finning to stay level and you never relax and use your tank of air much more quickly than is necessary.

If you're perfectly horizontal then you always have a good feel for whether your buoyancy is correct or not and it tends to improve much more quickly because there are no other "forces" clouding your judgement as to what is neutral. If in doubt - just stop moving completely for a moment and feel whether you're rising or falling in the water column - then makes the necessary small adjustments with your BCD inflator / toggle dump.

If you're "heads up" and you buoyancy is wrong and you find yourself travelling to the surface - then clearly you can't just give a little fin kick downwards as you can when you're horizontal to correct things. Finning will just make the problem worse - another good reason to be horizontal.

Kicking up the crap is clearly something you've worked out for yourself!

Did I say that buoyancy is the hardest thing to get right in diving? Maybe it's deciding who to listen to and whose advice to take

HTH

[Mal Bridgeman]

Nice one H Jr...has your account been hacked too?

Mal

EDIT - You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Howard Payne again

[ScubaSue]

Nice one H Jr...has your account been hacked too?

Mal

EDIT - You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Howard Payne again

I gave him one earlier Mal, you can share mine

Howard - I really should have the patience to write posts like that. Good one.

[Chris W]

Maybe it's deciding who to listen to and whose advice to take

This is the hardest bit about diving for me..........



Sounds like you're doing the right thing to me stick with it!!!!!!!


Howard - Green incoming that was a great post!!!!!

[Morag]

Excellently put, Howard.
Green incoming

[gerbil]

This is why i read this site for useful gems like this. Green in coming for both OP for asking the question and Howard for so comprehensivly answering it.

[Jonathan64]

Excellent post - will be using that when I am instructing as it is very informative.

Cheers

[jon wright]

Nice one Howard and well done Sleaford. Maintaining a horizontal position in the water without finning usually takes lots of practice and is SO important when swimming over coral or silt. Are you relaxed, I would think so as it's pretty hard to do if you aint chill...