Frist Newsletter
12-31-2002

Ocean Adventures Newsletter October 2002

Inside this edition:

Shop News
OA Becomes an Official ScubaPro dealer
Confessions of a Buoyancy Control Criminal



Shop News:

Ocean Adventures becomes an Official ScubaPro dealer.

Confessions of a Buoyancy Control Criminal:

When I first began diving I was probably the worst diver in history. I had zero buoyancy control. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I did everything I now tell my students not to do. I over-weighted myself (and still thought I didn’t have enough weight on), I hyperventilated like air was going out of style, and my finning style resembled Lance Armstrong coming in to the finish line at the Tour de France. A few years later, a few more dives under my belt, and I’ve learned some pretty valuable lessons that I thought I would pass along in this month’s newsletter.

The most important thing I learned was to calm down. When you breathe irregularly, the sudden changes in air volume in your lungs almost guarantee that you’ll feel off balance. You’ll also have a harder time submerging at the beginning of the dive and feel the need to throw on more weight to “get down.” So how do you calm down? First, you get out and dive more. The underwater realm is new; it’s different; and it can be a little intimidating. The more you dive, the more you’ll be able to mentally and physically adapt to the changes. Also, think about your breathing. Practice taking slow controlled breathes on land. At a minimum you should be able to inhale for 5 seconds and exhale for 5 seconds. Notice the calming effect. The next time you dive, practice underwater. Not only will you begin to notice you no longer need to flail your arms around to stay balanced but you’ll also enjoy the dive more because calming down will let you concentrate more on what’s going on around you.

The next most important thing, for me, was to shed pounds off of my weight belt. Calming down helped a lot but so did understanding what buoyancy was and was not. When you dump the air from your BC, the objective is not a rocket sled ride to the bottom. What you should be aiming for is to be just negative enough so that when you exhale out completely (see, there’s that breathing stuff again) you can clear the first 5 – 10 feet of water, which is the hardest to get past. Also, many people get this wrong (as did I) but a proper buoyancy check is done with an empty tank. If you do a buoyancy check with a full tank, the extra weight will fool you into under-weighting and you’ll be unable to do a safety stop at the end of your dive (when the air is gone from the tank and it is much more buoyant). My last tip on weighting is to religiously keep track of the equipment and amount of weight you wear. You’ll begin to notice small things like wearing a hood probably requires a couple extra pounds (as it does for me).

Lastly, learn to fin properly. Finning properly requires less work so you’ll be less prone to become exhausted and forget about breathing slow and deep. Kick from the hips (not the knees) and swim horizontal in the water. The horizontal part may sound obvious but believe me, once you see someone swimming head up looking like they’re peddling a bicycle while they dogpaddle with their arms and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Since Steve always slaps my wrist over being too wordy in my writing, I’ll make him happy and end here by saying that if you’re still working on your buoyancy control, don’t hesitate to ask one of us to give you some feedback on your style. We’re here to help and we’re more than happy to help. If you want something a little more structured, please see someone at the shop about taking the Peak Performance Buoyancy Course. It’s fun. It’s good training and you’ll end up a better diver.

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