Mastering scuba skills won’t just set you apart from other divers; it will improve your safety level while diving. Here, we’ll explore five simple, fantastic ways you can make the most of every minute of bottom time while improving efficiency.
Slow Down, and Do It as if Your Life Depended on It
Whether you are a new diver or one with plenty of experience, it’s possible that you may be moving through the water too quickly. Not only may you be swimming too fast, you might be fidgeting quite a bit, consuming more air than you need to, scaring marine life, and maybe missing some interesting sights in your quest to cover as much distance as possible.
There’s another reason to slow down that matters more than all of these combined. When you slow down, you may reduce your risk of developing decompression sickness. Water is 800 times thicker than air, and moving through it rapidly puts a strain on your body’s muscular and respiratory systems. The faster you move, the deeper you will be breathing, and the more strain you will be putting on the cells responsible for keeping your tissues oxygenated. This leads to greater levels of nitrogen saturation, increasing the potential for DCS.
Pick the Right Kick
No matter how you kick, you’re going to be propelling yourself through the water; the question is, not how to do it, but to do it well. Just like running or jumping, finning is something we all are capable of, but it’s not something we have all optimized. Choose the right kick for the environment and the circumstances, and you’ll be increasing your efficiency, using less air, and ultimately experiencing less physical fatigue.
Flutter kicking generates plenty of propulsion, but it can be strenuous. Use it when fighting a current or swimming next to a vertical structure, or when you need a short burst of speed.
Frog kicking is most effective when you have mastered buoyancy control. It utilizes all the leg muscles and will move you through the water; an added advantage is that as the movements are horizontal rather than vertical, you won’t kick up silt when you frog kick. Frog kicking is easy, so it can reduce air consumption, especially when you learn how to kick and glide. Don’t use it next to walls or coral reefs since you might cause damage or injure yourself.
The bent-knee cave diver kick is a limited method of propulsion, but it uses very little energy, and it offers the least potential for stirring up bottom sediments. It is not useful in current, but it’s outstanding for making your way carefully through confined or silty areas. Preventing silt-out is an excellent way to stay safe.
Position Your Arms Correctly
If you are fairly new to diving, you might wonder what to do with your arms while you are diving. Some divers use them to aid in swimming, others dangle them, and still others put them to work to support camera equipment. Assuming you’re not photographing or filming anything, here are some tips for positioning your arms while scuba diving.
-
In front of your BCD – You can hang onto straps or stuff your hands into the sides of your BCD. This isn’t the most attractive look, but it can be a comfortable way to keep your hands accessible and out of the way.
-
Down the side of the body – Putting your arms along the sides of your body creates a streamlined position that is useful in current.
-
Arms folded in front of you – Tucking your arms in close to your body and folding them in front of your chest helps with balance and produces only a small amount of drag.
-
Arms folded in front of the lower body – Folding your arms in front of your body can help you carry things more efficiently while diving, and if you keep them up, drag is minimized.
Ultimately, you can place your arms in any position that feels comfortable to you – just remember that some positions may cause more drag than others, and excessive movement will cause you to expend more energy than is necessary.
Master Buoyancy Control
It takes time – and quite a bit of patience – to master buoyancy control. First, learn how to weight yourself properly, and ensure that you enter the water with your BCD inflated to ensure that you expend less effort at the surface while swimming to the descent point.
Deflate your BCD and exhale to become negatively buoyant, and you’ll begin to descend. You can slow down by adding air to the BCD; you can also take a full breath until the descent stops. Once descent stops, you are negatively buoyant – the state of neither floating nor sinking without the need to use your fins to maintain your body’s position in the water column. It’s a great feeling, and when you master it, you’ll be able to use less air and effort.
Learn to Equalize Properly
Most experienced divers have had to call at least one dive because of an inability to clear the ears. While this isn’t completely avoidable, there are some ways you can make equalization a whole lot easier, no matter which of the many available equalization techniques you choose to use.
First, relax, ensuring that you breathe slowly and evenly. This will relax the muscles around your Eustachian tubes and make it easier to equalize. Second, begin equalizing as you begin your descent, working to equalize every three feet or so until you reach the bottom. Recall what you learned in your open water course: equalize early and often instead of waiting for your ears to start to hurt! If you cannot equalize, ascend a few feet to relieve the pressure, then try again. If after a few tries you cannot equalize, you should call off the dive. Next, never use earplugs while diving or cover your ears with anything tight. Ensure your hood fits well; if it’s too tight, it can contribute to problems with equalization. Finally, be sure that you are fit to dive. Diving with a cold or sinus problem can cause reverse squeeze, which is painful and can cause damage to the ears.
Gaining confidence, relaxing, and ensuring that you are comfortable will help you to focus on the technical aspects of your dive while enabling you to enjoy yourself more fully. Practice these five skills, and you’ll discover that scuba diving becomes much easier and more fulfilling.