I'm a long time wannabe but a newbie in true reality. I finally got back in the water about two months ago, first time ever in open water, after not having did any swimming in ten years. About one month ago I started, quickly, making the change from swimming to diving. The equipment isn't all there by any means.
I finally made myself a decent homemade monofin but still am only using regular swim goggles. The problem finally showed itself in the past couple of days, and the 'solution/problem' came tonight.
So far I hadn't been having any troubles with equalizing. I know by using swim goggles that I won't get very deep, no problem right now. I'm comfortable with that realization since most of the easy to get to water around here is, 25 feet deep, at the most. The closest bit of water that has public access, about two miles from here, does go down 160' but I don't like even being on that lake due to the heavy boat traffic and the fact that any diving I do is by swimming to where I dive, no boat for me. I generally take the 7-8 miles drive and stay away from the boats and the deep water. The deepest I've seen, by dropline, on the pond/lake that I've spent most of my time on, is 25 feet. It also is quite murky, 6-8 foot visibility.
Two days ago I was out trying out my most recent version of the monofin. I dove down to the bottom of the pond that I was in. The area that I was in is around 18'. I noticed a definite equalization problem. I tried to correct it with no luck whatsoever. On a second dive I had the same problem. I pretty much called it quits and just spent the remaining time working on the monofin technique at about 6-8 feet under.
Last night I was back out and once again had the same problem. The only problem this time was that when I made it back to shore I noticed that I did have some blood mixed in with my spit. I knew that I definitely was having an equalization problem. I was stumped. I had already watched the Washington U video on equalizing and still no luck.
I have noticed over the past two days that I have a 'tough' right ear. The left will equalize quickly, on shore, and the right takes much more pressure. I've been equalizing using the pinch your nose and blow method, err I believe the better name might be Valsalva(sp?).
I did a little more reading this morning on the forum and found a link that I wanted to investigate with this afternoon before maybe trying again this evening. Granted I knew trying again this evening would not be the smartest thing under the circumstances but I pretty much also know with my limited equipment, that my diving season is pretty much coming to a close, due to only having a farmer john wetsuit. Right now I'm only managing 25-30 minutes top in the water, and I shivering like the dickens at that point. I've had the wetsuit since I got into whitewater kayaking back in the late '90s.
I came home tonight and read through the most recent link directly involving inverted equalizing. In the thread I read across the ideas of watching your head. I knew that I was pretty much always looking down as I dive. The shallow and murky water makes me want to watch where I'm going so I don't end up putting my head into bottom of the pond, literally. I noticed in the thread that someone had said that if you are having trouble clearing on one side you should turn your head to the other side and blow. I tried and it did seem to make a big difference in the amount of pressure it took to get the right ear to pop, much less pressure. I tried several other head positions to see what might work the best and the easiest.
Well...this is where the problems started. I noticed that I had the easiest time popping when I dropped my head to my chest. This worked even better than turning the head. To the point where I knew I was definitely going to head out and try it, even against my better judgement.
I headed back out to the pond. I decided to first try to see if I noticed the problem when dropping down feet first. I didn't ever remember having the problem earlier in the summer when dropping down feet first, just now when dropping down head first. Well...the problem didn't exist. I quickly started to realize that this was more than likely a simple problem of equalizing while inverted. I next tried an angled decent. Again no problem. I definitely knew I had found the problem.
Next, I decided to try a standard inverted dive and see if by tucking my head if I could still equalize or if the pain would come back. At first I thought that pain was going to come back, it didn't seem like the equalizing was working, and then pop, the ears cleared beautifully. No real force trying to get them to pop, just had to do it. I think the early stages of this particular dive was more me than me not being able to clear. When the ears cleared I came to a very BIG realization...
I definitely must say I can see what the lure of the deep is all about. At least when your a mere mortal and not an experienced deep diver, and your in 200+' water you don't have to worry about burying your head in the bottom, LOL!!!!! It definitely does seem tucking my head is the the easiest way, so far, for me to equalize. The problem is simply being able to tell how close to the bottom that I am. The limited visibilty and the shallow water creates the simple problem of being able to tell how close to the bottom you are when diving.
I didn't try turning the head and seeing if I would be able to clear or not. It does seem while sitting here in front of the computer that I can get the ears to pop much easier by tucking my head versus turning the the head.
As crazy as this may sound...how do you manage keep track of where you are in relation to the bottom when you can't see the bottom and your not using a line with any kind of depth indications on it? Yes...a definite problem.
Ryan
I finally made myself a decent homemade monofin but still am only using regular swim goggles. The problem finally showed itself in the past couple of days, and the 'solution/problem' came tonight.
So far I hadn't been having any troubles with equalizing. I know by using swim goggles that I won't get very deep, no problem right now. I'm comfortable with that realization since most of the easy to get to water around here is, 25 feet deep, at the most. The closest bit of water that has public access, about two miles from here, does go down 160' but I don't like even being on that lake due to the heavy boat traffic and the fact that any diving I do is by swimming to where I dive, no boat for me. I generally take the 7-8 miles drive and stay away from the boats and the deep water. The deepest I've seen, by dropline, on the pond/lake that I've spent most of my time on, is 25 feet. It also is quite murky, 6-8 foot visibility.
Two days ago I was out trying out my most recent version of the monofin. I dove down to the bottom of the pond that I was in. The area that I was in is around 18'. I noticed a definite equalization problem. I tried to correct it with no luck whatsoever. On a second dive I had the same problem. I pretty much called it quits and just spent the remaining time working on the monofin technique at about 6-8 feet under.
Last night I was back out and once again had the same problem. The only problem this time was that when I made it back to shore I noticed that I did have some blood mixed in with my spit. I knew that I definitely was having an equalization problem. I was stumped. I had already watched the Washington U video on equalizing and still no luck.
I have noticed over the past two days that I have a 'tough' right ear. The left will equalize quickly, on shore, and the right takes much more pressure. I've been equalizing using the pinch your nose and blow method, err I believe the better name might be Valsalva(sp?).
I did a little more reading this morning on the forum and found a link that I wanted to investigate with this afternoon before maybe trying again this evening. Granted I knew trying again this evening would not be the smartest thing under the circumstances but I pretty much also know with my limited equipment, that my diving season is pretty much coming to a close, due to only having a farmer john wetsuit. Right now I'm only managing 25-30 minutes top in the water, and I shivering like the dickens at that point. I've had the wetsuit since I got into whitewater kayaking back in the late '90s.
I came home tonight and read through the most recent link directly involving inverted equalizing. In the thread I read across the ideas of watching your head. I knew that I was pretty much always looking down as I dive. The shallow and murky water makes me want to watch where I'm going so I don't end up putting my head into bottom of the pond, literally. I noticed in the thread that someone had said that if you are having trouble clearing on one side you should turn your head to the other side and blow. I tried and it did seem to make a big difference in the amount of pressure it took to get the right ear to pop, much less pressure. I tried several other head positions to see what might work the best and the easiest.
Well...this is where the problems started. I noticed that I had the easiest time popping when I dropped my head to my chest. This worked even better than turning the head. To the point where I knew I was definitely going to head out and try it, even against my better judgement.
I headed back out to the pond. I decided to first try to see if I noticed the problem when dropping down feet first. I didn't ever remember having the problem earlier in the summer when dropping down feet first, just now when dropping down head first. Well...the problem didn't exist. I quickly started to realize that this was more than likely a simple problem of equalizing while inverted. I next tried an angled decent. Again no problem. I definitely knew I had found the problem.
Next, I decided to try a standard inverted dive and see if by tucking my head if I could still equalize or if the pain would come back. At first I thought that pain was going to come back, it didn't seem like the equalizing was working, and then pop, the ears cleared beautifully. No real force trying to get them to pop, just had to do it. I think the early stages of this particular dive was more me than me not being able to clear. When the ears cleared I came to a very BIG realization...
I definitely must say I can see what the lure of the deep is all about. At least when your a mere mortal and not an experienced deep diver, and your in 200+' water you don't have to worry about burying your head in the bottom, LOL!!!!! It definitely does seem tucking my head is the the easiest way, so far, for me to equalize. The problem is simply being able to tell how close to the bottom that I am. The limited visibilty and the shallow water creates the simple problem of being able to tell how close to the bottom you are when diving.
I didn't try turning the head and seeing if I would be able to clear or not. It does seem while sitting here in front of the computer that I can get the ears to pop much easier by tucking my head versus turning the the head.
As crazy as this may sound...how do you manage keep track of where you are in relation to the bottom when you can't see the bottom and your not using a line with any kind of depth indications on it? Yes...a definite problem.
Ryan