Underwater Wakulla
By RUSTY MILLER
When the spring cleared my instructor and I went to the surface and had a little talk about how I feel with the different gear on and commended me on my buoyancy. We then discussed my fin use and how the typical flutter kick is not a good means of propulsion especially when it comes to diving in a high silt area such as a cavern or cave and she went on to say that I should not use it when in open water including the ocean. It is a lot of wasted energy for very little forward motion. So she explained to me the proper technique of the frog kick. Here is where the entertainment started at least for her. She demonstrated the frog kick and then I attempted to do the same but with no good results.
Like many other divers I have always used the flutter kick because that’s all I was ever taught, I mean when I was very young I was inspired by the TV show called Sea Hunt starring Lloyd Bridges as Mike Nelson and they used the flutter kick so that’s how I was trained in fact anyone who learned to dive back then and even today uses the flutter kick.
Needless to say I was struggling with it. The hardest part for me is keeping my knees bent at a 90 degree up angle while keeping my body in a horizontal position. There were times when I would get the right combination and propel myself a good distance under water. Unfortunately those were few and far between.
So I spent hours under water trying to get it right. When she saw how frustrated I was getting with myself we went to the surface to talk. At the surface she would give me the positive of what I was doing and go through again what I needed to work on. Because of my frustration in me and disappointment she wanted to show me another skill I would need and that is the ability to unhook the rear clip of one of my tanks and swing it forward and hold it in front of me like you would an underwater scooter and swim then reattach it back on the harness. She demonstrated it, swam a ways then hooked it back on her harness. She made it look so effortless and smooth. My brain said piece of cake but forgot to remind me that she has been diving side mounts for 26 years (mistake).
Now it was my turn, she said not to worry about my frog kick but to stay away from the bottom and try it with my normal kicking. I descend and took my left tank bottom clip off the harness while swimming; I need to tell you it was going fine to this point. After I unhooked it and started to lift the tank in front of me that’s when it went crazy and I mean crazy.
A little physics here that when you remove half of the weight and try to put it in front of you the other half of the weight will take over and since the other tank with the extra 5lb block lead weight is solely on my left side I rolled to my left uncontrollably and not only did I revert back but so far back I let the other tank go and started to dog paddle my way to the surface.
By the way my tank I let go was still clipped to the top D ring of my harness so at no time were any tanks harmed or lost but I looked and felt like a complete idiot. My instructor had to help me back to the surface and swim over to the rock ledge.
After we laughed for a few minutes she said for me to try it at the surface while swimming, it worked a little better only because I had inflated my rig and the air on my left side helped hold me more horizontal.
We kept trying to get my frog kick and position a little more and then it was getting late so we unhooked the tanks and headed back to our vehicles. We spent 7 and half hours in the water that day. There’s more to come in Emerald Springs the next day.
Keep the bubbles flowing.
Russell Miller is the manager at Wakulla Diving Center in Medart. NAUI Instructor #59999