Utamate Guide to Improving Buoyancy Control | Perfect your Buoyancy as a Diver

 Ultimate Guide to Improving Buoyancy Control  | Perfect your Buoyancy as a Diver

In this article we're going to look at advanced buoyancy control, and why it's so important for you as a diver to master this skill as early as possible. You will need to be correctly weighted before you learn advanced buoyancy techniques

Buoyancy, one of the hardest things to master but also one of the most important things to master, it's called the basics of controlling your buoyancy.

How do you increase buoyancy?

Your buoyancy is one of the hardest things to master when you just got your open water license. It's like getting your driver's license. They have taught you how to drive safely but now you have to become a goo driver over time. 

In this article we'll show you how to determine how many weights you need. How to make a proper descent, how to swim underwater and how to make a good ascent. So let's dive in!

First thing you need to do is weigh yourself properly. You go into the water with the estimated amount of weights. You release all the air from your BC and while you maintain a normal breathing rate.You should float at eye level. 



When you breathe all the way out you should go down. Important to know is that you need to keep your fins pointed down so you stay upright in the water. When you have too much weight you will find that when you breathe all the way in, you still will go down this means you have too much weight on you. You probably need to lose one or two kilos' or three or four pounds and then try again.

When you don't have enough weights on you the opposite happens. So you stay on the surface even though you breathe out all the time. 

It's always hard to estimate the first time how many weights you need. 

Next step is the descent and this is important because you need to maintain contact with your buddy. You need to see where you're going and you need to maintain buoyancy. So your descent isn't too quick. 

The way I'm demonstrating it right now is not the correct way. You can't see what's happening underneath you. 

It's hard to communicate with your buddy and eventually I'll crash down on the bottom. 

The correct way is to descend vertically the first meter. So you can go down more easily and then go horizontally because in that way you can look at your buddy, see what's happening underneath you and you're already in the diving position. 

How do you adjust buoyancy when diving? 

This is much easier than the other way and this way you can do literally everything. So you can move to a certain position if you want, you don't drop like a stone and it's really easy to maintain buoyancy and don't crash onto the reef. 

It's really important that you maintain the reef and if you have good descending skills this will help preserve the reef for everybody. 

Next step is swimming and this is the hardest part for most divers. Common mistakes we see is that they are too positive, and they tend to swim down and also when a lot of divers are too negative they tend to swim up. 

Both use a lot more air and your tank will run out even sooner. The best way to do it is, achieve neutral buoyancy. When don't make a lot of depth changes you only need to adjust your inflator once and most, the rest of your dive you can actually do on your breath. This doesn't mean holding your breath. 

It means that when you want to go up like over this obstacle breathe in slowly and breathe out again but I take longer to breathe in and sooner to breathe out.

So in this way I don't hold my breath but I can control my buoyancy.
Same way going down. I take longer to breathe out and take make it quicker to breathe in. That way I'm going down.

At what depth do you lose buoyancy?

At the end of you dive it's time for your ascent and a common mistake we see a lot is that new divers use their BC as a lifting device and this is quite dangerous because you don't have any control over your ascent rate and really soon you're going too fast because the air is expanding inside your BC. 

The best way to do it is stayed in your diving position. So you can move around, maintain contact with your buddy and go up slowly. There are two ways to deflate your BC because that's what you need to do. Otherwise, the air expands and makes you go up faster and faster. The first way is with your inflation. 

You need to tilt all the way up. The more easy way is using the kidney dump valve.

It's on the right side on the back. In this way you can actually stay in the diving position while you're going up and release a bit of air. Remember to put your bum just a little out so the air goes to the highest point.
Important to remember is that buoyancy is a skill which takes time. 

So you need time, experience and a lot of diving to develop your buoyancy. So don't expect any miracles right from the get-go. In one of our upcoming articles we'll show you some tips and tricks and some exercises which you can do your own pool to improve your buoyancy. 

You can actually put in your body weight, your circumstances like saltwater freshwater, what gear you use, what type of suit you're wearing.