Correction to what I said in the video: - 4/6 breathing is 6 breaths per minute, not 12. Useful feedback from comments: - At the end of a dive with an AL80 tank, you can expect to be about 4-6 lbs lighter.
It's actually also about 4-6 lbs lighter! But that brings up a good point. The important bits from aluminum to steel is actually that aluminum is lighter, so it starts negatively buoyant but when 4-6 lbs lighter at the end of the dive, it can become neutral or even positively buoyant. That's why generally weight checks at the safety stop at the end of the dive are also just as important at the start of the dive. Steel tanks are very negatively buoyant, and even after 4 to 6 lbs, lighter remains negatively buoyant so it should not drastically effect the end of the dive.
@itravelwisely thank you. This is HUGELY helpful as i look at tanks and talk with my dive shop. I'll certainly add in a safety stop weight check when I hit the pool. I loved seeing the bright wetsuits too. Most around here use black. The visibility difference was amazing.
@MysticalDragon73 thank you and glad you liked it! That is one positive side to wearing bright colors! It also stands out better in a group and some colors are easier visible at depth! My wife custom designed wetsuit so it's an original piece, haha.
@@itravelwisely figures. I got a pair of mares neon green fins and a pair of rk3s in pink for the visibility. I'm really surprised and disappointed that brighter colors aren't more prevalent.
Thank you! Tried to nail a quick description in this one, I have another video that goes a bit more in-depth on weighting you'd likely enjoy. Weighting is o e of those things you're always tinkering with, haha.
An interesting video. Its appreciated. With some of the tank discussion used cubic feet sizes vs liters since we thankfully dont use metrics here in the states. Im 6'2 275lbs 51 years old and out of shape. I got ow and drysuit qualifed in September. On our last dive when we needed to plan it, Others wanted to see so many things in the quarry at about 40 feet. The instructor said it was ambitious. I was racing to try to keep up. I hit 700psi when we were starting back. I shallowed upto about 15 feet. When we ended i had about 300 psi remaining. So many others had 800-1000psi for the same 30 minutes. Part of it could have been the drysuit as i was the only one doing my drysuit qualification. Im hoping to do some pool time to work on my weighting and buoyancy control.
From my own experience a lot of this will sort itself out with practice. I know when I started diving my air consumption was horrible because of a number of things. 1) I was stressed on doing things correctly, scuba diving can feel like a lot out of the gate. 2) I was using my BCD to aggressively control my buoyancy causing constant fills and dumps instead of using my controlled breathing for precision. 3) I moved around a lot with my hands, subpar finning, and frantic breathing. All of these will negatively impact your air consumption, and dry suit diving is even more beastly than wetsuit diving. Taking that on at the same time is even more complex! Frankly there is a lot there to get more comfortable with! As mentioned in the video, you'll see a significant amount of improvement just feeling more comfortable in the water and controlling your breathing. For me the game changer was using my BCD less, today I generally only add to level off my buoyancy until we reach our maximum depth. From there I use my breathing to stabilize. If you have ground under you, you can be near it and try to hover a bit above it (just make sure you are not so close to kick up silt as in a lake that becomes a big issue). A dry suit also requires demanding good trim to prevent air from accumulate in the suit. I do not use the dry suit as a BCD, leave the dry suit dump valve open and let it squeeze, only adding minimal air to what you can tolerate in the squeeze. This is an amount you'll find what works for you but once you add air, keep it just enough to prevent the squeeze and use the BCD for the large buoyancy adjustments. The bad part about dry suit diving is it requires good trim but good trim is hard to hammer out as it also requires good buoyancy which is why its tough to jump straight to dry suit diving. But that makes it harder, not impossible. So the key is to try and practice both at the same time. A reference point like the ground will help you so you can stabilize and a certain distance through the dive and practice that buoyancy control. With time, patience, and practice, you'll see an improvement in that air consumption!
Thank you for an excellent video. I would like your advice on how I can correct (1) my listing to my left side and (2) my feet rising upward to where I'm upside down while I'm at a safety stop or even trying to hover at depth. I've streamline my gear and am properly weighted, having done my bouyancy check at the surface. To compensate for listing, I've added weight in my right side pocket which helps some to stop listing to my left. To address my "floaty feet" I don't know how to correct this other than adding ankle weights which I feel are too heavy, however, I bought a pair of ankle weights where one can insert variable weight - lead shot - for adjustment. But I'm not comfortable using them. My fins are Apex RK3 and I wear hard sole booties, both of which add weight to my feet but don't seem to stop my feet from rising. The diving I'm doing is in warmer water where I'm either wearing a 3mm or 5mm depending on temp. It is so annoying to find that the only time when I'm still in the water is when I'm listing to my left side and am upside down with my feet sticking straight up. Any thoughts or advice? Thanks!
Thank you, and I'm glad you liked the video! For the listing, if your using a single tank, sometimes you might have to manually reposition it and screw in the wing nuts on it if it's a backplate as if they get loose it'll flop around more. Also, a camera or heavy light on one side might cause imbalance, too. Having spread out some of your gear to different pockets might help, but I'm not a fan of adding weight to compensate as it's better to have as little weight as possible. For floaty feet, are you using a dry suit? I'd usually advise more negatively buoyant fins, but Apeks RK3s are negatively buoyant but not the heaviest. Jet fins are a bit heavier, which might help. But first, before trying new fins, I am not a fan of ankle weights as it does add weight. Try shifting more weight down towards your lower back. If you have weight like integrated weights or weights in higher trim pockets, try to move weights to the lower cam ban of your tank straps. You want more weight on your back and on your back in the middle of the back. This will balance the seesaw a bit and help you feel the upper body is being pulled down less. If your using dry suit, this can happen when air collects in your boots, they become like functional balloons, for this, straighten the legs, get into a positive trim and let the air come up to the dry suit dump valve so you can get it out. I advise not to use the dry suit for buoyancy in normal cases, so add a tiny aor to it to remove the squeeze and create some warmth. Let me know if this helps!
Finding my neutral buoyancy is lot easier on wet suit than my drysuit. Finetuning my weights with wetsuit. Went from 12kg to 9. Think i end up to 8. Eventually you win alot by breathing and minimize finning etc. We mostly go in the water sooner than other divers and come out later. We fin at turtle speed, where others think they are a torpedo. In the video you also see people constant finning. Just do a fin stroke ( i do frogkick.. Or frogkick just from my ankle) and let yourself go at a almost standstil do another fin stroke.
Exactly, as long as you're not holding others back, you're usually in a good spot. Our air consumption has been quite good , and we can almost hit 2 hours on a 12L tank, but realistically, it's rare to dive that long. Drysuit weighting is definitely a beast, and the more gear you add from there doesn't make it any easier haha.
@ i have a 15L but I’m a big bloke. We pretty much dive around an hour or 75 minutes. Probably when we are on holiday next year on Bonaire it might me longer😂
I agree, I do have an external microphone, but I ended up recording this whole video with it, not quite plugged in all the way. Bummer, I didn't have quite time to rerecord, but the good news is future videos are better!
i met americans on my vacation to bonaire using 2 10 liter tanks for 50 minutes, forgot their names. but this would a great video for them 😂 also, got a question, u said to relative deep dives? what is relatily a deep dive for you?
Haha, please do share it! That is quite short. It really depends on the dive profile. I've been aiming to push for 90-minute dives with single 12L and avg depth of 24 meters. Still room for improvement always.
@@itravelwiselydo you dive 90 min at avg 24m dive on air? If 24 is time weighted average depth, I would think you will almost certainly incur a deco obligation which is probably something you should avoid doing on a single tank. Separately if you were to use all 210 bar (you shouldn't ) on a 12L tank at avg 24m (3.4 ATA), you will have an implied SAC rate of around 8 L/min which is exceptional. I believe average diver is around 15. To leave 50bar you need to be around 6.2 L/min.
@gmatev11 your right 24 avg and 90 minutes was a bit of a ball park. I am in Lanbeh right now, and dives start at 24 meters and shallow up to avoid deco. Our dives are regularly 70 to 90 minutes, but the avg ranges more from 11 to 18 meters because we do shallow up and start the dive shallow. Quite nice diving here given you can dive as long as air allows, and I was interested in how long we can go. I did do a 102 minute, which is the longest of the trip, but avg was 11.2 meters.
If you check your bouyancy with a full AL80 you'll be 4-6 pounds light at the end of your dive. If your doing 4/6 breathing that's 6 breaths per minute not 12.
Tip 1 is sadly wrong. You breath every 6-10 seconds. Your lung fits 4-6l or gas. Your BCD usually has a capacity of 12-20l. But you add only small amounts, as if you full inflate, you fly up. And for sure you don`t inflate or deflate every 6 seconds. Fact, the air you spend in your BCD is so small compared to the one you breath, that it`s irrelevant.
Your not wrong but my point was more along the lines that BCD is used for major depth change adjustments only, and once a diver starts to use their breathing for precision buoyancy control it often helps significantly with air consumption, give the focus is on buoyancy and that will slow the breathing naturally.
Correction to what I said in the video:
- 4/6 breathing is 6 breaths per minute, not 12.
Useful feedback from comments:
- At the end of a dive with an AL80 tank, you can expect to be about 4-6 lbs lighter.
Good info. What's the weight change of a steel 100 or 117?
It's actually also about 4-6 lbs lighter! But that brings up a good point. The important bits from aluminum to steel is actually that aluminum is lighter, so it starts negatively buoyant but when 4-6 lbs lighter at the end of the dive, it can become neutral or even positively buoyant. That's why generally weight checks at the safety stop at the end of the dive are also just as important at the start of the dive.
Steel tanks are very negatively buoyant, and even after 4 to 6 lbs, lighter remains negatively buoyant so it should not drastically effect the end of the dive.
@itravelwisely thank you. This is HUGELY helpful as i look at tanks and talk with my dive shop.
I'll certainly add in a safety stop weight check when I hit the pool.
I loved seeing the bright wetsuits too. Most around here use black. The visibility difference was amazing.
@MysticalDragon73 thank you and glad you liked it! That is one positive side to wearing bright colors! It also stands out better in a group and some colors are easier visible at depth! My wife custom designed wetsuit so it's an original piece, haha.
@@itravelwisely figures. I got a pair of mares neon green fins and a pair of rk3s in pink for the visibility.
I'm really surprised and disappointed that brighter colors aren't more prevalent.
Excellent video. Very clear teaching,. Thank you.
Greatly appreciated and going to continue to improve!
Thank you for putting quality content into the dive community.
Thank you for these kind words! Hoping to keep improving the content as I go too!
I love the weighting portion, thanks
Thank you! Tried to nail a quick description in this one, I have another video that goes a bit more in-depth on weighting you'd likely enjoy. Weighting is o e of those things you're always tinkering with, haha.
An interesting video. Its appreciated.
With some of the tank discussion used cubic feet sizes vs liters since we thankfully dont use metrics here in the states.
Im 6'2 275lbs 51 years old and out of shape. I got ow and drysuit qualifed in September. On our last dive when we needed to plan it, Others wanted to see so many things in the quarry at about 40 feet. The instructor said it was ambitious. I was racing to try to keep up. I hit 700psi when we were starting back. I shallowed upto about 15 feet. When we ended i had about 300 psi remaining. So many others had 800-1000psi for the same 30 minutes. Part of it could have been the drysuit as i was the only one doing my drysuit qualification. Im hoping to do some pool time to work on my weighting and buoyancy control.
From my own experience a lot of this will sort itself out with practice. I know when I started diving my air consumption was horrible because of a number of things.
1) I was stressed on doing things correctly, scuba diving can feel like a lot out of the gate.
2) I was using my BCD to aggressively control my buoyancy causing constant fills and dumps instead of using my controlled breathing for precision.
3) I moved around a lot with my hands, subpar finning, and frantic breathing.
All of these will negatively impact your air consumption, and dry suit diving is even more beastly than wetsuit diving. Taking that on at the same time is even more complex! Frankly there is a lot there to get more comfortable with!
As mentioned in the video, you'll see a significant amount of improvement just feeling more comfortable in the water and controlling your breathing. For me the game changer was using my BCD less, today I generally only add to level off my buoyancy until we reach our maximum depth. From there I use my breathing to stabilize. If you have ground under you, you can be near it and try to hover a bit above it (just make sure you are not so close to kick up silt as in a lake that becomes a big issue).
A dry suit also requires demanding good trim to prevent air from accumulate in the suit. I do not use the dry suit as a BCD, leave the dry suit dump valve open and let it squeeze, only adding minimal air to what you can tolerate in the squeeze. This is an amount you'll find what works for you but once you add air, keep it just enough to prevent the squeeze and use the BCD for the large buoyancy adjustments.
The bad part about dry suit diving is it requires good trim but good trim is hard to hammer out as it also requires good buoyancy which is why its tough to jump straight to dry suit diving. But that makes it harder, not impossible. So the key is to try and practice both at the same time. A reference point like the ground will help you so you can stabilize and a certain distance through the dive and practice that buoyancy control. With time, patience, and practice, you'll see an improvement in that air consumption!
Good info.
Thank you, and glad you enjoyed!
Excellent information
Glad you enjoyed this one too!
Thank you for an excellent video. I would like your advice on how I can correct (1) my listing to my left side and (2) my feet rising upward to where I'm upside down while I'm at a safety stop or even trying to hover at depth. I've streamline my gear and am properly weighted, having done my bouyancy check at the surface. To compensate for listing, I've added weight in my right side pocket which helps some to stop listing to my left. To address my "floaty feet" I don't know how to correct this other than adding ankle weights which I feel are too heavy, however, I bought a pair of ankle weights where one can insert variable weight - lead shot - for adjustment. But I'm not comfortable using them. My fins are Apex RK3 and I wear hard sole booties, both of which add weight to my feet but don't seem to stop my feet from rising. The diving I'm doing is in warmer water where I'm either wearing a 3mm or 5mm depending on temp. It is so annoying to find that the only time when I'm still in the water is when I'm listing to my left side and am upside down with my feet sticking straight up. Any thoughts or advice? Thanks!
Thank you, and I'm glad you liked the video! For the listing, if your using a single tank, sometimes you might have to manually reposition it and screw in the wing nuts on it if it's a backplate as if they get loose it'll flop around more. Also, a camera or heavy light on one side might cause imbalance, too. Having spread out some of your gear to different pockets might help, but I'm not a fan of adding weight to compensate as it's better to have as little weight as possible.
For floaty feet, are you using a dry suit? I'd usually advise more negatively buoyant fins, but Apeks RK3s are negatively buoyant but not the heaviest. Jet fins are a bit heavier, which might help. But first, before trying new fins, I am not a fan of ankle weights as it does add weight. Try shifting more weight down towards your lower back. If you have weight like integrated weights or weights in higher trim pockets, try to move weights to the lower cam ban of your tank straps. You want more weight on your back and on your back in the middle of the back. This will balance the seesaw a bit and help you feel the upper body is being pulled down less.
If your using dry suit, this can happen when air collects in your boots, they become like functional balloons, for this, straighten the legs, get into a positive trim and let the air come up to the dry suit dump valve so you can get it out. I advise not to use the dry suit for buoyancy in normal cases, so add a tiny aor to it to remove the squeeze and create some warmth.
Let me know if this helps!
Finding my neutral buoyancy is lot easier on wet suit than my drysuit. Finetuning my weights with wetsuit. Went from 12kg to 9. Think i end up to 8. Eventually you win alot by breathing and minimize finning etc. We mostly go in the water sooner than other divers and come out later. We fin at turtle speed, where others think they are a torpedo. In the video you also see people constant finning. Just do a fin stroke ( i do frogkick.. Or frogkick just from my ankle) and let yourself go at a almost standstil do another fin stroke.
Exactly, as long as you're not holding others back, you're usually in a good spot. Our air consumption has been quite good , and we can almost hit 2 hours on a 12L tank, but realistically, it's rare to dive that long.
Drysuit weighting is definitely a beast, and the more gear you add from there doesn't make it any easier haha.
@ i have a 15L but I’m a big bloke. We pretty much dive around an hour or 75 minutes. Probably when we are on holiday next year on Bonaire it might me longer😂
Good content, but you really should improve the audio quality. Get an external mic ☺️
I agree, I do have an external microphone, but I ended up recording this whole video with it, not quite plugged in all the way. Bummer, I didn't have quite time to rerecord, but the good news is future videos are better!
i met americans on my vacation to bonaire using 2 10 liter tanks for 50 minutes, forgot their names. but this would a great video for them 😂 also, got a question, u said to relative deep dives? what is relatily a deep dive for you?
Haha, please do share it! That is quite short. It really depends on the dive profile. I've been aiming to push for 90-minute dives with single 12L and avg depth of 24 meters. Still room for improvement always.
@@itravelwiselydo you dive 90 min at avg 24m dive on air? If 24 is time weighted average depth, I would think you will almost certainly incur a deco obligation which is probably something you should avoid doing on a single tank.
Separately if you were to use all 210 bar (you shouldn't ) on a 12L tank at avg 24m (3.4 ATA), you will have an implied SAC rate of around 8 L/min which is exceptional. I believe average diver is around 15. To leave 50bar you need to be around 6.2 L/min.
@gmatev11 your right 24 avg and 90 minutes was a bit of a ball park. I am in Lanbeh right now, and dives start at 24 meters and shallow up to avoid deco. Our dives are regularly 70 to 90 minutes, but the avg ranges more from 11 to 18 meters because we do shallow up and start the dive shallow. Quite nice diving here given you can dive as long as air allows, and I was interested in how long we can go. I did do a 102 minute, which is the longest of the trip, but avg was 11.2 meters.
If you check your bouyancy with a full AL80 you'll be 4-6 pounds light at the end of your dive. If your doing 4/6 breathing that's 6 breaths per minute not 12.
Great feedback! Added this to a pinned comment. Thank you!
Спасибо! Очень хорошее, логичное и понятное изложение!
Thank you for this note, and I'm glad you enjoyed it and was helpful!
Tip 1 is sadly wrong. You breath every 6-10 seconds. Your lung fits 4-6l or gas.
Your BCD usually has a capacity of 12-20l. But you add only small amounts, as if you full inflate, you fly up. And for sure you don`t inflate or deflate every 6 seconds.
Fact, the air you spend in your BCD is so small compared to the one you breath, that it`s irrelevant.
Your not wrong but my point was more along the lines that BCD is used for major depth change adjustments only, and once a diver starts to use their breathing for precision buoyancy control it often helps significantly with air consumption, give the focus is on buoyancy and that will slow the breathing naturally.