Conscientious, contact-free diving means diving in control at all times. You should constantly be aware of where you are in the water column. If your buoyancy is under control you won’t unconsciously float up or sink — or if you do, you’ll immediately recognize the situation and correct it.

Good buoyancy control alone is not enough, however, to guarantee that you’ll avoid accidental contacts while underwater. You also need to develop awareness of where your entire body is in relation to surrounding objects. This is especially important when night div­ing and maneuvering in confined spaces such as wrecks.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of think­ing that where your head goes, so goes the rest of your body. We secure our hoses and accessory gear so they won’t hit anything, but often pay little atten­tion to where our fins are as they flutter along behind us.

One of the ways to prevent fin con­tact is to move slowly and gently. Envi­sion yourself as part of a delicate ballet, a troupe of dancers gracefully executing precision movements to the rhythm of the flowing waters. This metaphor works for me, anyway; you can create your own vision to help you blend har­moniously with whatever underwater environment you’re exploring.

When you are a guest in somebody else’s home (in this case whatever aquatic creatures live where you’re div­ing) you do your best to fit in and to avoid disturbing or damaging it. Moving slowly and carefully through the water column allows you time to develop continual awareness of every part of your body. For instance, you’re swimming along, approaching a bottom feature protruding from the substrate (e.g., piece of a wreck, sea fan, giant anemone). Consider in ad­vance how you will clear it and by how much. “Shall I go over or around? Am I horizontal or are my legs lower than my torso? I have 6 inches vertical clearance, is that enough for my kick to clear’?”

If you conclude that you might not entirely miss the object, you have choices. One is to change course and kick around it, if possible. This option keeps you at the same depth and lets you view the feature from the side rather than the top. Alternatively, if the feature is large you can kick upward and pass well over it, adjusting your buoyancy as necessary.

Another option, if you’re near the top of the object, is to simply inhale deeper and glide over it. This is the most re­laxed response, involving no noticeable body movement, but requiring an awareness of how your personal buoyancy is affected by your breathing pattern. Still another choice is to change your kicking style to one that will avoid con­tact. In Open Water class we’re taught to use the flutter kick as our standard means of propulsion. It works well for covering distance, but for moving slowly or in close quarters other styles are preferable.

One of my favorites when I want to swim near the bottom without disturb­ing it is the side kick. This is basically a flutter or scissors kick performed side­ways — the stroke is parallel with the bottom instead of toward it. Twist your body at the waist so you are still facing forward, but your hips are rotated 90 degrees. Since the fin strokes push the water sideways rather than down, little turbulence reaches the bottom and the chances of contacting it are minimal. A Variation on this is the bent-knee flutter used by cave divers. This does not mean bicycling. The body stays in a straight line from head to knees (i.e., don’t bend at the waist). The kick is from the knees and the down­ward stroke stops with straight legs and the body aligned, rather than con­tinuing downward.

The frog kick is another option. The knees are brought forward and out to the side with the ankles bent so the fins stick out, like a frog. Then the knees are quickly straightened and the toes are pointed, so the legs snap to­gether (watch a frog for the best demonstration). Again, the force of this kicking method is toward the back rather than up and down, so it can be used near the bottom.

The amount of propulsion from the frog kick depends on how far apart the knees are extended and how fast the legs are brought together It is a good al­ternative for gliding slowly around a site as well as for maneuvering through a tight swim-through.