Skill of the Week: Ascending
Saturday May 10, 2008
Unfortunately, every dive has to end and when it does it's important that you take as much care to finish it safely as you do throughout the rest of the dive.
It's not a pleasant fact, but it seems that we're regularly hearing stories of divers being injured or worse during ascents. Injuries can be caused by ascending too fast or by surface hazards such as speed boats. Using our How-To guide and this video demonstration you can learn the simple steps to follow to ensure a safe ascent every time.
If you're still not sure about this skill or any others please feel free to drop by our forum and ask any questions that may be on your mind.
Comments
I like to comment on step 5 of the ascend. A very nice trick is in stead of positioning the BCD deflator above your head (with extended arm) position the deflator in front of you, with extended left arm, and put the outlet upside down. You can now fully open the outlet by pressing the deflator button. Raising or lowering your left arm, while still pressing the button and pointing the outlet downwards, decreases or increases the ascend rate. The nice thing is that en/ xcessive air expension (when coming closer to the surface) is automatically purged. So it becomes harder to ascend to fast. After a couple of ascends one will find out what the ideal angle of the left arm has to be. This of course depends on the position of the deflation tube on the BCD as well as the form and size of the outlet.
When to much air is drained a little upward swimming might over come negative bouyancy.