The Secret of Buoyancy

I was reminded about the importance of good buoyancy recently, when I accompanied a bunch of try divers as a guide. It was their first experience diving in the ocean – we were only at 3 meters – and of course, their buoyancy was appalling! Most of them ended up bouncing along the seabed dragging themselves along with their hands, then putting too much air in their jackets and popping up towards the surface. Of course we were all there once.

But for new divers, or for those who perhaps haven’t dived for some time, here are some tips:

• Correct weighting is essential, and if you’re unsure, go for more than you need.
• To see if your general buoyancy is good, empty your jacket of air at the surface and take a deep breath. You should sit in the water, with the water at eye level. If you sink, you’re too heavy, if you’re whole head is out of the water, you’re too light.
• To get your buoyancy right once you have submerged, get onto the sea bed and slowly inflate your jacket until you can pivot on your fins. Once correct, you should be able to raise and lower your body on your fins by simply breathing.
• As you go deeper, you’ll need to add a little more air to your jacket, and as you ascend, you’ll need to dump air. Do both in short bursts.

In time, you won’t even need to think about it, as achieving good buoyancy will become natural and you’ll find you’re making constant little adjustments. The benefits are huge:

• Your air consumption will decrease dramatically
• Diving will become effortless as you are effectively weightless
• You can hover over the sea bed and not damage coral or kick up sand

Once you have mastered this art, the next thing to think about is balance. Ideally you want to balance in the water in a prone position, but slightly “legs down” so that you aren’t straining your neck to look ahead. This can easily be achieved by using ankle weights, or trim weights on or around your cylinder.

Practice your buoyancy skills as much as you can and until you get it right – you will be rewarded with much longer, more comfortable dives. And once you have the skill the worlds of cave and wreck penetration diving will be opened up to you.