School's starting up, and so is the Advanced Open Water class that I work with. This semester, I'm going to follow the wet sessions with my SCUBA Theory entries. The class goes far beyond what a regular dive shop can offer so even if you're certifed, you might want to check it out. Today in SCUBA Theory: neutral weighting and mask clearingThis morning was our first one hour pool session. Everyone is issued a mask and we send them into the pool. The first task is to get the students neutrally buoyant. We usually start everyone out with around ten pounds of weight and start adjusting it. Here's how we do it.
- Wearing the weight belt and mask, take a full breath and raise your hands over your head.
- Lean over into the water and let yourself sink to the bottom.
- Count the number of seconds until you're on the bottom of the pool.
- Our goal is between five and eight seconds or so.
- Adjust weight and repeat until the timing is right.
- To keep the mask sealed up top, place your index fingers across the top of the mask skirt.
- It may help to tilt the bottom of the mask away from your face slightly.
- Slowly exhale air out of your nose into the mask to displace the water.
When you're not trying to blast the mask off your face, you can simply press against the top of the mask and clear it.
As they get better and better, we add more and more challenges to the skill. They begin with the mask on their head. Then we have them put the mask on and clear it. Next they toss the mask into the water, then retrieve and clear it. Then we move to horizontal mask clearing...
Horizontal clearing is just harder to do. It's less effective, but it comes in handy. As you lay on the pool floor in the horizontal position, turn your head to the side. Hold the mask and exhale. I find it's easier to start facing down and exhale as I turn my head. This usually won't completely clear the mask, but it will get your face clear. With practice, it is possible to get nearly all the water out.
Now that everyone has a handle on mask clearing we take them down to the deep end. Once there, we review equalizing the pressure in the ears. Once they're comfortable with visiting the bottom of the pool, we give them their final challenge of the day. We have them toss their mask into the deep end.
Their last task is to swim to the bottom, put the mask on, clear it and surface.
This last one is where I usually find out who's going to do really well in the class. Most of the students might give it a try, but they'll hang out in the shallow water and balk a bit. The few who keep trying usually end up making the most progress in the class. These guys are the ones who really want to succeed.
At the end of class, we have everyone swim a length for us. Since they'll be swimming some distances later on, a few minutes of helping them improve their stroke goes a long way.
1. Will, cool post. My eyes are very sensitive to salt water, so I find that I clear my mask more frequently than most. However, I've never heard of "horizontal mask clearing." While I'll probably stick to traditional clearing methods, next time I hit the water I'm going to try this method, just for fun. I'll let you know how I do.
Posted at 4:48PM on Aug 23rd 2006 by Willy