Dive Training Blogs

Oyster Diving’s PADI Specialty of the Month: Peak Performance Buoyancy

Published

9 years ago

April 1, 2015

Whilst not the most glamorous sounding course in the PADI Specialty repertoire, Peak Performance Buoyancy is probably the key ingredient in the recipe for becoming a good diver.

If you can get your buoyancy fine-tuned then you are much more in control of your position in the water, i.e. you go where you intend to go. All too often you see new and even experienced divers yo yo’ing up and down in the water, heavy kicking and arms flapping. Not only is this saw-tooth profile not good for you (ask anyone who works in a recompression chamber) but it’s quite stressful for the diver and also their buddy.

A diver with good buoyancy appears to glide horizontally through the water effortlessly and it can almost appear as if they are flying through the water rather than swimming. They are more relaxed, more streamlined, they get to see more as they can hover closer to the action, and their air consumption is considerably better then someone with poor buoyancy skills.

Many divers will argue that air consumption is down to having big lungs or being a ‘bloke’. A small portion of this is true but I have seen some pretty big guys who can last over an hour on a 12ltr tank having completed a 30m dive. Many dive centres in Europe charge around 5 Euros per cylinder supplement for a 15ltr tank, so it doesn’t take many dives to recoup your money if you decided to complete your Peak Performance Buoyancy course. Plus, if you’ve ever had to carry round a 15ltr tank for a while you’ll have noticed that they weigh a fair bit too!

What are the top tips to being good at buoyancy? Well it starts with being correctly weighted and having the weights correctly positioned on your body. Too often I’ve been at a dive centre on holiday and watched their dive guides and instructors threading pounds upon pounds of lead on their customers’ weight-belts. For them it’s better for their clients to be over weighted then underweighted as they don’t want to keep dragging the boat back to grab some more weights and shove them in their pockets.

If you recall when you were learning dive there is 2 atmospheres of pressure at 10m and at 30m there is 4 atmospheres. This means if you have to add ½ litre of air to your BCD at 30m to get neutrally buoyant, that air will expand to 2 litres of air by the time it reaches the surface. Not only does the expanding air make you more buoyant, it also uses air from your tank. If you were correctly weighted then you may only need to add a tiny amount of air which means the volume of air expanding and contracting in your BCD is far less, making it much easier to control your buoyancy and avoiding runaway ascents.

The Peak Performance Buoyancy course teaches you how to be correctly weighted, how to be more streamlined, how to use your lungs to fine-tune your position in the water and how to adjust the air in your BCD correctly.

Being good with your buoyancy is also good for the environment. It means you are less likely to damage coral or damage your equipment on hard or sharp objects. Many good dive sites are visited by lots of boats, and a runaway ascent could also put you at risk of being hit by one of them.

Many people ask what the number one tip is for good photography, and I always answer good buoyancy. It helps you keep the camera still, helps you position yourself properly in the water and allows you to get close to the subject you are photographing without kicking coral etc with your fins.

Next month I will be writing about PADI’s Wreck Diver Specialty course.

Oyster Diving are offering a 10% discount for anyone who signs up to a Peak Performance Buoyancy course in April. Simply call 01273 384971 or e-mail info@oysterdiving.com for more information or sign up to your course.

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Mark Murphy

Having worked as a Dive Instructor in the Virgin Islands, Thailand and Egypt, Mark returned to the UK in 2006 when he founded Oyster Diving. His principle aims for the new diving centre would be to appeal to the more discerning customer by offering the best facilities, having an integrated travel agency so customers can complete their dives abroad as well as in the UK. In 2010 Mark won Sport Diver magazines' 'Best Diving Instructor'. For more information on Oyster Diving, visit www.oysterdiving.com.

Blogs

Intro to Tech: What is it about?

Published

2 weeks ago

April 7, 2024

International Training

Article by José Pablo Mir
Pictures by Cezary Abramowski

The world of technical diving is exciting. It opens the door to new sites, depths, and bottom times. More importantly, it opens our minds to a new way of planning, facing, and experiencing dives, even those not purely technical.

Becoming a technical diver is a process, and like in other aspects of life, we should find the proper entry point that suits us best based on our knowledge and experience. The Introduction to Technical Diving course from TDI -the world’s largest and most recognized technical diving teaching organization- is the best option for divers who have yet to gain experience in the fundamental aspects of this new practice. The course’s content and its embrace of new techniques and technologies make it possible to acquire a solid foundation to learn and gain experience in this practice properly.

Becoming a technical diver is not something that happens overnight, whether deciding to become one or receiving a certification card stating we are now technical divers. It is a slow process extending farther away than any introductory course. It requires effort and dedication. But it will bring us satisfaction from day one -or two.

It is a matter of mentality

First, we must understand and accept that technical diving, involving greater depths, longer bottom times, exotic gases, virtual or real ceilings, and more, comes with higher levels of risk than the sport diving we have been practicing until now.

Although this discussion usually starts with a warning about risks, as I’ve done in the previous sentence, our practice is not a game of chance.

Technical diving is a rational activity that requires maturity and good judgment, and we will put everything into ensuring that each dive is a successful one -meaning we return from it safe and sound. With this understanding, we will strive to establish a mental attitude more aligned with our practice and its realities.

This new “technical diver” mindset we will develop will lead us to be more cautious in our executions, more analytical in our plans, more rational in our strategies, and more detailed in our procedures.

Experience will keep teaching us to know ourselves better, to keep our anxiety and other emotions under control, and to manage our impulses. Over time, our senses will sharpen, and we will be more attentive to the particulars of the situation we find ourselves in.

tech diving

Strategies and procedures

Our strategies, those broad guiding lines tracing the path to follow, from how to approach planning to where, with what, and how we are willing to get there, will be more specific and more practical. Not because they magically become so, but because we will consciously and deliberately frame them that way.

We will establish clear, concise, and realistic procedures. Not only for the undesirable situations that may present themselves but also for those that are part of our dive objectives.

Even though, as technical divers, we often use equipment different from what we were previously accustomed to, it is essential to note that the gear does not make the diver. In a way, we could consider such equipment as the necessary tools to implement what our goal seeks to achieve, according to our strategies and procedures.

Technique plays an important role

We must put our greatest effort into learning and perfecting the different techniques we will be acquiring. Buoyancy, trim, propulsion, cylinder handling, deploying DSMBs and lift bags, valve drills, and more are essential skills we must begin to master to progress in our art. What we cannot do, when we need to do it, can harm us.

Our techniques must be effective and achieve the purpose for which they were devised. But they must also be efficient and require the least resources possible, including the time they take and the effort they demand. Effectiveness and efficiency will prevail over beauty and other considerations that may come to mind, although none of them should be mutually exclusive. A technique executed efficiently and effectively tends to have an inherent beauty.

Refining techniques is a lifelong mission. Some of them will be easy to master from the go; others, on the other hand, will be our life mission and will require many repetitions just to resemble the idea we have in mind of how they should be executed.

We must consider the environment

Our learning, the needs and musts of the practice we engage in, the experience we gradually gain, our strategies and procedures, and even our equipment and tools change with the environment.

Diving in the ocean, everything about us must be suitable for ocean dives. Conditions there rarely emulate those found in a pool, lake, or river. Variable winds and currents, greater depths, visibility conditions, other divers with uncertain skills around us, marine life, maritime traffic, distance from the coast, and many other factors add complexity and uncertainty.

It is never necessary to master the pool on the first day, but planning and aspiring to gradually cope with the ocean’s conditions is essential.

The cost of good training

We are aware that our resources are often scarce in relation to the possibilities of use we could give them if they were not. To a greater or lesser extent, we are part of the economic reality in which we are embedded.

Fortunately, the cost of good technical diver training is not an entry barrier. Comparing training and equipment costs, we see that the former are generally lower. Yes, lower cost for personalized service, essential to our future

performance and safety, than for a series of mass-produced products that are mere, albeit necessary, tools for an end.

The value of good training

The value of the training we received encompasses a range of characteristics, from emotional and methodological to technical and technological. TDI and its Introduction to Technical Diving course offer a deep and modern approach, with a teaching strategy that aims to create thinking divers, not merely obedient ones.

As technical divers, our knowledge is our primary tool. In this type of activity, what we don’t know can harm us.

Is this course optional?

Unfortunately, the fact that this Introduction to Technical Diving course is not a prerequisite for any subsequent training is an invitation to consider it optional. And we all know what usually happens to “optional” under budget constraints.

However, this course should be seen as optional only by those divers who are somehow familiar with the use of technical equipment, who have a mindset more in line with the requirements of this type of diving, who plan and execute the dives the proper “technical” way, who know their gas consumption rate, who are not intimidated by non-decompression tables, who feel comfortable using their dive computers, and know the techniques and have at least an acceptable level of buoyancy, positioning, and propulsion. Those can go straight to a more advanced training course, such as TDI’s Advanced Nitrox.

We must ask ourselves whether or not we are in that group.

Remember our goal: to have fun

Recreational diving is our passion. Jumping into the water carrying heavy equipment and having properly dotted our I’s and crossed our T’s have only one ultimate goal: fun. This is the activity we have chosen as a hobby. We must enjoy it; it must give us pleasure and make us vibrate.

Having a good time is not optional!