A scuba buoyancy check is very essential to make sure that you have the proper weight for scuba diving. It is one of the scuba diving skills that you will learn in the Open Water course, but you will practice it once. It is important to understand the reasons to do a buoyancy check underwater, and learn to do it in the right way.

Although, you can guess how much weight you need for a dive, this may lead to wasting air as a result of being overweight, or even missing to conduct a safety stop or making an uncontrolled ascending as a result of being underweight.

You should make your buoyancy perfect to avoid these problems, and to make your dive easy and free from any stress as possible. .

Read the next lines and learn to do a buoyancy check like a pro.

How to do a buoyancy check Underwater

There are 3 steps to perform a scuba buoyancy check properly:

• You are supposed to have a rough idea about the quantity of weight you need to start with, add this to the weight system you have. While you wear your full scuba diving equipment, enter the deep water until you are unable to touch the bottom.
• Fully deflate your BCD while holding the regulator in the mouth, then breathe while holding a normal breath. You should now be floating at around eye level, without doing any kicking. If you start to sink, all you should do is to take off some weight.
• You are floating now at eye level on the surface with your BCD empty while holding a normal breath. The next step is to take a full breath out. This act should make you sink a little underwater. If this does not happen, then you need to add a little weight.

You will need a few tweaks but after that, you will know exactly the exact amount of weight that is perfect for you when scuba diving.

Where and when to perform a buoyancy check

The best time to perform a buoyancy check is at the end of a dive, when your tank is lighter in weight, as there is low air.  And it is also important to stay underwater to conduct a safety stop and make a slow, controlled ascending at the end of a dive.

If you want to figure out your perfect weight when carrying a full tank of air, you may not take enough weight on your belt to substitute for the tank when it is empty. Remember that you add a little air to the BCD if you are slightly overweight. But, when you need more weight, you can’t add it once you are underwater.

It is a better thing to do a buoyancy check every time you dive in a different ocean, lake or sea. Because you may find some waters are saltier than others and therefore you will need to adjust your weight, as in saltwater, you will be more buoyant. 

You should also perform a buoyancy check after changing your scuba diving equipment. For instance, with a new 3mm wetsuit, you will be more buoyant underwater than when wearing your older 3mm wetsuit.

If you change the size and type of your tank that you are using, this can also affect your weighting. For instance, an aluminum tank makes you more buoyant than a steel one. A smaller tank makes you more buoyant than a bigger one. 

The best place to do a buoyancy check is in a calm bed of water which is free from any currents or hazards. Take your time to decide your correct weighting to have a perfect buoyancy.

What Also You Need to Know About the Scuba buoyancy check

You can practice buoyancy while fun diving, for instance, when you are coming up to a coral bombie, you can go over the top of it by adding a little air to the BCD, another simple way is to take a deep breath in until starting to rise over the top. Taking a deep breath can be usually enough to lift you up, and after rising to the wanted depth, you can return to your regular breathing.

You will practice the skill of buoyancy control every time you descend for a dive. While descending, You should release all or most of the air from your buoyancy compensator, and fully exhale to get yourself more down under water. As the water’s weight above you gets heavier, your descending will be quicker. 

To slow the rate of descending, add a little air to your BCD until reaching the desired depth. Then, ensure to be neutrally buoyant while you breathe normally before continuing your dive. If you find yourself having to kick up to stay at a specific depth, try to add more air.

You can take further education to make your buoyancy perfect. For instance, when taking the Advanced Open Water course, there is “Peak Performance Buoyancy dive” to choose to be your next adventure. It will be a great choice since buoyancy is an essential skill. 

In this adventure dive, you will learn extra buoyancy skills, and the dive instructor will play many fun games with you. For instance, you can pass weight back and forth, or even do an underwater backflip under the instructor supervision. 

If you are interested in this dive, you can also take the PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy speciality course in which you can go into more detail about buoyancy control, and learn how to make more buoyancy skills.

Now, you know almost everything you need to do a perfect buoyancy check, and understand the importance of performing one while diving.