Precision Buoyancy Workshop

Next to breathing, the most important skill in scuba diving is buoyancy control. It is also the most neglected. The major point is, entry level divers in general do not have the ability to execute the precise buoyancy control that is necessary to execute ascent procedures prescribed in dive tables and computers. It is apparent that entry level divers need more instruction and training in buoyancy control.

Butch Hendricks speaking in 1989 at the American Academy of Underwater Sciences Biomechanics of Safe Ascents Workshop

Prerequisites:

• Qualifications: entry level diving qualification from any agency (including NAUI, PADI, BSAC, CMAS, SAA, SSAC, etc.)
• Experience level: none
• Minimum age: 12
• Diving medical: self assessment acceptable

Equipment:

• If you own your personal diving equipment, it's best to take the workshop using this. If not, Mavericks Diving will loan you all that you need, except for a prescription face mask.
• You will need your own bathing costume and a towel.

Duration:

• one day

Dates & availabilty:

• available on request

Good buoyancy control is indivisible from safe, comfortable and easy diving. And it is because good buoyancy skills are so fundamental, but seemingly poorly taught, that so many qualified scuba divers feel that they don't really have it together in the water. On every dive they're a little more nervous than they should be, a bit more worried about losing control on a wall and dropping, or about not being able to hover at the safety stop in front of their buddies. They are heavy on their air, so they're dives are short. They are simply not as comfortable diving as they would like to be. A well run buoyancy workshop addresses these concerns, improves your watermanship and makes diving much more enjoyable - which is how it's supposed to be.

A Mavericks Diving Precision Buoyancy Workshop is a thorough course that's designed to develop crucial buoyancy skills and explain the concepts behind them. We've put the Diamond Reef System at the heart of our precision buoyancy control course. The Diamond Reef is a purpose-designed program for training divers in precision buoyancy control and pre-dates the specialty buoyancy courses introduced by major training agencies. Created in the late eighties, it was ahead of its time then and we believe it still provides, in the hands of a good instructor, the best learning system available for helping divers develop consummate buoyancy skills. It's a cross between an underwater obstacle course and an artificial reef. And it's going to help you learn a great deal, attain superb buoyancy skills, and have lots of fun doing so.

A review of The Diamond Reef Precision Buoyancy Control workshop appeared in The Independent [link]. The course was taught by Matt Crowther. Matt has been heavily involved with Mavericks Diving from the beginning. He is the former technical editor of "Dive Magazine".

As with other Mavericks Diving courses, we mix theory with practice. We believe it is important to understand the reasons you are learning and applying a skill. Our highly experienced instructors have lots of background information to share. Steve Warren is quoted in the book The Art of Diving on precision buoyancy control using the Diamond Reef and Matt Crowther's teaching of it featured in The Independent. Andrew Pugsley (AJ) is an expert diver and multi-agency qualified instructor who presents The Underwater Channel. Each of them is committed to ensuring you leave this one day course feeling that you've had a really good time and that you've really improved your personal diving skills.

We'll go over the reasons that poor buoyancy skills and lack of awareness contribute and cause diving accidents. You'll look at how incidents develop and get out of control and how to stop them in their tracks before they can endanger you. By examining in detail real diving incidents, including fatalities, which involved lack of proper buoyancy control, you'll begin to understand how to recognise the signs of a developing buoyancy problem. Most serious diving incidents are not the result of a single event. Instead, a number of seemingly small problems that can normally be handled comparatively easily in isolation build upon one another and combine to become insurmountable. The British Sub-Aqua Club describes this as the incident pit. At Mavericks Diving we believe that recreational diving is an adventure sport with inherent risks. They can usually be managed, but never eliminated. We think it is wrong and misleading to gloss over the risks and this is why we discuss safety in detail during your precision buoyancy workshop. During this workshop we'll challenge some myths and misinformation commonly held by divers. You'll learn the principles of buoyancy. A basic understanding of how your buoyancy changes during descents and ascents will help you calculate how to properly weight yourself and let you work out need-to-know information such as does your BCD provide adequate lift for the dives you make, for example.

You'll work on lots of practical skills all designed to help you thoroughly master buoyancy control. We'll begin by showing you how by weighting yourself properly you can actually dive without any air in your BCD. In entry level classes it's common to overweight students to help them stay in one place (on the pool bottom) and not drift around. Unfortunately, this is often not explained and divers leave the course thinking that it's okay and normal to be overweighted in open water. It really isn't. Many experienced divers still get it wrong. Steve and Andrew (AJ ) will show you how to get this basic requirement absolutely right.

Water is 800 times more dense than air - that's why you can float on it. It's also why it creates such resistance to moving through it. Our Mavericks Diving Precision Buoyancy Course will teach you how to achieve neutral trim to make you streamlined and help you move through the water with minimum effort. You'll practice distributing your weight to achieve exactly the trim you want in the water. By moving your weights around your body, you'll find out how you can easily change your attitude in the water. You'll work with integrated weights, conventional weight belts, BCD trim weights, weight harnesses, ankle weights and learn how to use your tank as a balance weight. Being properly trimmed makes you much more streamlined and will significantly decrease your air consumption leading to longer dives. In the pool you'll discover how vital proper trim is to being a good diver. Ascents and descents are part of any dive - and also prone to problems. In open water you could be on a wall or in the blue with thousands of metres between you and the seafloor and you really want to stay in the top bit. When ascending without a line, you'll also want to be able to precisely control your ascent speed. You'll practice using breath control and your BCD to achieve safe ascent rates and descent rates without kicking.

You'll also work on your hovering skills, vital to making safety and decompression stops. You'll learn to pause and hover at any point to halt a descent or ascent. These skills are valuable for protecting your ears if they stick on the way down and for reducing the risk of decompression illness and lung expansion injuries on the way up. We'll throw in mid-water delayed marker buoy deployment as well - if you haven't learned how to do this previously, it's a very useful added value of the Mavericks Diving Precision Buoyancy Control workshop.

Good buoyancy control is a combination of knowledge, attitude, skills and equipment. All of these are taught during a Mavericks Diving Precision Buoyancy Workshop. Another essential part of your course is developing spatial awareness. Your fin tips have no nerve endings, so if you kick a one hundred year old hard coral, you're likely to kill it in an instant and you won't even know you've done it. A careless fin kick inside a wreck or cavern can turn good visibility to absolute zero in seconds. A stray pressure gauge or alternative air source can drag along the reef like a wrecking ball damaging both it and the coral. So we'll put a lot of time into developing your awareness of your own profile, your surroundings and your possible impact on them. Good spatial awareness and perfected buoyancy skills mean that you can safely get very close to your subject with a camera, for instance, yet exit the water with super images and leave the marine environment undamaged. Dolphins can't swim backwards.vScuba divers can. Sometimes. Being able to move backwards is a great skill to have. It can let you back out of a hole you shouldn't have entered or move safely away from a delicate fan coral while holding your camera and framing the shot. Some fins are better for this than others, so we'll have a few types available for you to try. You'll also practice hand sculling techniques that let you subtly change your position in the water column with minimal effort and little thrust. These skills are less disturbing to fish and you are more likely to be accepted by them and allowed closer for observation using them. Many divers are concerned that a buoyant ascent, achieved by dropping weights or inflating BCDs is highly dangerous. At Mavericks Diving we'll explain some of the issues surrounding this self rescue technique and why fast, buoyant ascents are a proven way to reach the safety of the surface. And we'll demonstrate them in the pool before letting you take a turn. You'll practice making a rescue lift on a Simulaid manikin using, alternatively, your own BCD and the casualty's to bring you both to the surface. This exercise will demonstrate some of the problems of overweighting by either diver in a rescue situation. NAUI entry level divers (the program Andrew and Steve teach at Mavericks) require students to learn this technique and in-water resuscitation methods (the kiss of life). If you haven't learned these skills, Andrew and Steve will be happy to teach you during your Mavericks Diving Precision Buoyancy Workshop. Once you've cracked the basics, it's on to practice more advanced skills. We want you to fully appreciate how seemingly subtle changes to your weighting can have a huge impact on your buoyancy. So we'll get you mask clearing while hovering, picking up items of different mass and swimming them through the diamonds as well as playing pass the weight around..... Every game is intended to refine your abilities.

You'll try some different finning techniques, learn finger walking, use a reef hook and deploy reels and lines through a tunnel of diamonds. You'll even fly a high speed diver propulsion vehicle through them too. Learning's best when it's fun!

You'll play our underwater version of The Gun Run: moving an outboard engine through the Diamond Reef Assault course using lifting bags without ever touching the bottom or breaking the surface.....

A Mavericks Diving Precision Buoyancy Workshop is much more comprehensive than many other similar sounding programs. We include many more extras - they might sound small but on your next dive they'll make a big - and positive - difference.

If you have more questions, then please get in touch with Steve or AJ. They'll be happy to discuss the course in more detail with you.

To book this course we recommend you get in touch by phone, e-mail, or by dropping into the shop to discuss the requirements. If you've already done that, you can download the booking form (editable pdf).