Controlling Ascent Rate

[DetectorGuy]

Here is an idea... Burn up a tank down to 500 PSI on a shallow dive. Surface and dump ALL the air from your BC. Then adjust the amount of weight you have so that when you breathe out you sink and when you breath in you ascend. Then add a couple pounds and remember how much weight you have for that exact wetsuit, hood, gloves, tank, and anything else that may affect buoyancy. That will make you weighted about right for any dive with that configuration.

Then when you are at depth on your next dive, all you need to do to have a controlled ascent is get neutrally buoyant prior to the ascent, keep your thumb on the dump air button on your inflator, check your depth on your computer, fin a couple kicks to start the ascent. Keep an eye on your depth, and when you have risen about 10' in the water column, then stop finning. You should be on a somewhat steady automatic ascent. Keep an eye on the rate of ascent on your computer and just bump the air dump button as your ascent rate speeds up. You will be dumping air all the way to the top (just a little bit at a time). You may need to fin once in a while at for the first few times until you get used to it but after a while you won't have to fin much at all on the way up. I still fin most of the way up on 100'+ deep dives to ensure a slow controlled ascent but it is a big energy and air waster to do that. Another trick is to "flare out" or go horizontal on your ascent so the hydro dynamics work to your advantage. The resistance of water hitting the horizontal diver on ascent is more than on the vertical diver. This is what dry suit divers call riding the bubble.

My opinion is to be 2 to 5 pounds heavier than neutral when at the surface with an empty tank. The dry suit in winter conditions changes that a bit as I like to be a bit heavier so I can leave more air in the dry suit and therefore stay warmer. Hope that helps...