Great story Lynne. The same thing happens at both ends of the experience spectrum. I was down at Scripps for a meeting and wanted to dive the Canyon so Jim Stewart hooked me up with Burt Kobiyoshi over on the main campus who in turn arranged for me to make a dive with one his most experienced instructors.
We had a moderate swim out to the buoy, and it was clear that she was "checking me out" by pushing the swim a bit harder than it needed to be. When we got to the buoy we immediately submerged and made our descent to the planned 60 ft.
Were moving out along the canyon wall looking for depth (plan was for a 100 ft. dive) and Im just uncomfortable as hell. I cant figure it out, but something just doesnt seem right and Im continuously backpedaling, swimming with my hands, etc. I cant seem to get comfortable with my position in the water, or my buoyancy, or anything.
Finally I realize what the problem is
each of us in unconsciously fighting the other to take the outside, that is to say, to keep the other between our self and the canyon wall. So I gave up the battle and let her have the outside track and we both settled down.
We had a laugh about it later, she had experienced the same discomfort that I had and then was confused when it just disappeared. So we leaned something about diving with other senior types that wed not realized before. In my case it was because even when Id been diving with equally or more experienced individuals previously, it had almost always been on my turf rather than theirs.
