How to Maintain Neutral Buoyancy Underwater

Everything looks, feels and sounds different under the water. One thing you'll notice when you first begin SCUBA diving is that staying below the surface, actually getting your body to go down and stay down is a bit of a challenge. That's where part of SCUBA diving equipment comes in to help you stay weightless in the water as you control your own buoyancy to have a fun time in the underwater world.

Instructions

    • 1

      Understand what neutral buoyancy is. A large ocean vessel floats while a small steel nail sinks. Whether an object floats depends on how much water it displaces. In other words if something displaces an amount of water less than it's own weight, it sinks. Displace more water than it weighs and it floats or an equal amount of water and it will remain suspended.

    • 2

      Use lead weight to become negatively buoyant first. Figure out how much weight you need to carry in your weight belt. This is part of the certification process and is usually done in a swimming pool as you add or take away weight from your belt, jump in and see how much weight comfortably holds you under the water without being too much to swim back up with.

    • 3

      Once you are negatively buoyant with the weight belt, use your buoyancy control device or BCD to become neutrally buoyant. It is one of the most important skills in diving, yet also the easiest to master. The BCD is a device you wear that with a push of a button can be inflated or deflated with air to displace water and change your buoyancy. Basically, you are controlling buoyancy by changing the volume of air in your BCD.

    • 4

      Control your buoyancy. When you are at the surface, you want to be positively buoyant to conserve your energy. Under water, you need to be neutrally buoyant so you are weightless and can hover off of the bottom and avoid crushing or damaging delicate corrals and aquatic life.

    • 5

      Exhale. Another way to change buoyancy is to exhale air from your lungs. As the air in your lungs decrease, less water is displaced and you will sink. Most divers use this technique at the surface in order to start their descent to the bottom.