appropriate weighting and the importance of a buoyancy check

Proper weighting is one of the most overlooked yet critical aspects of scuba diving. Being over or under weighted affects your trim, air consumption, buoyancy control, and overall comfort underwater. Most divers carry too much weight, often just to be safe, but this leads to poor positioning, increased effort, and a reliance on inflating and deflating the BCD more than necessary.

The most accurate buoyancy check should be performed at the end of a dive, with about 50 bar remaining in your tank. This reflects your true buoyancy when the tank is at its lightest and ensures you'll be able to stay comfortably neutral during your safety stop without struggling to stay down.

How to do a buoyancy check at the end of the dive:
After your safety stop, when you’re back at the surface with around 50 bar left, remove any air from your BCD and hold a normal breath. You should float at about eye level. As you exhale, you should begin to sink slowly. If you sink quickly or struggle to stay up while holding a breath, you're still over weighted. This is the most reliable point to assess your actual weighting needs.
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Of course, we understand this isn’t always practical, especially when you can only perform the check after the dive is over. That’s why it’s also important to know how to perform a buoyancy check at the beginning of a dive while accounting for the heavier full tank.

How to do a buoyancy check before the dive:
With a full tank and while floating vertically, deflate your BCD fully and hold a normal breath. You should begin to sink very slowly just below the waterline. As you exhale, you should sink a little further. If you're weighted correctly, you can expect to sink slowly even while holding a breath. This takes into account the added weight of a full tank of air, which weighs more than many divers realise. If you can’t sink even after exhaling, you’re under weighted.

Appropriate weighting helps maintain horizontal trim, protects marine life by keeping you off the reef, and reduces fatigue by improving your hydrodynamics.

In the PADI Open Water Diver Course, this skill is practiced at least five times, both in confined water and during open water dives. If something is emphasised that often in your very first diving course, it’s a clear sign of just how important it is for safe, confident, and enjoyable diving.
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Master your buoyancy. Start with a proper weight check every time.

PADI Course Director Anand Chandra Sekaran
Anti Gravity Divers,
Perhentian Island, Malaysia.