Annoyed with myself! Should I be?

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Honestly, I think this is stupid. Your instructor wasted valuable pool time where you learn to dive (open water is for verification). There are many different "games" that can be done to help dial in your skills as a diver that actually are beneficial.

 

[aquaticj10]

If the instructor did not adequately prepare you for that drill, then you should not feel ashamed. If I was asked to do that and couldn't, then I would certainly feel ashamed but that is a drill that we teach at the advanced open water level to our students *university program where they get 3hrs/week of in-water time for 16 weeks but they are trained to do it with small skills leading up to a full equipment ditch and don.

If the instructions to the instructor were "go fetch" then shame on him for setting the class up for failure with the drill. If he chucked everything in and advised you on how to approach the skill and you still panicked, then still shame on him because it's open water and he didn't prepare you enough for that drill. Setting students up for failure is at best rude, but wrong on so many more levels.

Shake it @Jfinch and learn from the experience. It slapped you in the face but gave you a healthy respect for what's going on in the water and now you can process why that happened and what you need to do to mitigate the risk of it happening again, if you need help with going through that, some of us are quite good at it and are more than happy to help guide you.

Where in the UK are you? I'll be in Leeds Wednesday-Saturday if you are anywhere close to there and want to grab a pint to go through it

Very kind of you thanks a lot! This was just meant to be a bit of fun and on purpose we weren't drilled at all beforehand, he wanted to see our approach/thinking process in how to go about it. Not that close to leeds I'm afraid but appreciate the offer! More annoyed that I gave up at one point after not being able to recollect the tank/regs from the bottom of the pool, I think the mistake I made was not obtaining the fins straight after the mask, which would've given me more power to dive down and collect them. Oh well. I will retry this task after my OW training, determined to be able to complete it now that I managed to fail it. Otherwise though my OW training has been going great, always finishing lessons early with BSAC and being told that the reason we can do these "fun" activities is because we are speeding through the lessons so fast. That's a positive I guess, just not used to failing at things! Have a good time in Leeds!

 

[tbone1004]

Very kind of you thanks a lot! This was just meant to be a bit of fun and on purpose we weren't drilled at all beforehand, he wanted to see our approach/thinking process in how to go about it. Not that close to leeds I'm afraid but appreciate the offer! More annoyed that I gave up at one point after not being able to recollect the tank/regs from the bottom of the pool, I think the mistake I made was not obtaining the fins straight after the mask, which would've given me more power to dive down and collect them. Oh well. I will retry this task after my OW training, determined to be able to complete it now that I managed to fail it. Otherwise though my OW training has been going great, always finishing lessons early with BSAC and being told that the reason we can do these "fun" activities is because we are speeding through the lessons so fast. That's a positive I guess, just not used to failing at things! Have a good time in Leeds!

At the leadership level this is a timed skill. Gear is thrown in and you have to jump off of the 3m platform and stay down to collect it. Tank is off so you have to find the tank, turn it on, get a regulator in, then find everything else. As long as you're breathing, everything else is gravy! It may be foggy without a mask on, but at least you're breathing

 

[lowwall]

Just a shame because it's the first time I felt some level of "panic" in the water, swimming down to 2m without a mask and trying to find it... stuck a 2nd stage in my mouth and was flooded even after purging once, the panic was only for .5secs but ashamed that I even panicked. Pretty humbling.

Start with the gas. Once you can breathe, you have at least an hour to deal with everything else

 

[johndiver999]

Just a shame because it's the first time I felt some level of "panic" in the water, swimming down to 2m without a mask and trying to find it... stuck a 2nd stage in my mouth and was flooded even after purging once, the panic was only for .5secs but ashamed that I even panicked. Pretty humbling.

Then this was an excellent exercise. If you are feeling impending panic at 6 feet, you need to continue working on your comfort level in the water.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Then this was an excellent exercise. If you are feeling impending panic at 6 feet, you need to continue working on your comfort level in the water.

Do you even teach? Curious.

 

[Waterwulf]

We were subjected to a similar exercise in our NAUI class in the early 70's. The class was taught by Special Forces guys who were earning some extra cash by trying to drown students. They called the exercise the Hell Dive and it was a must pass prior to any open water work. You had to carry your gear in your arms up to the top of the high dive, jump off and then put your gear on in the water. It was all Horse Collar BC's and the straps all had to be in the right place. Your mask was blacked out with tin foil so you couldn't see what was happening.

The Instructors teamed up on each student as they were unknowingly fed one by one to the Hell Dive. None of us knew what we were in for until it started. We were told to hit the bottom and put our gear on. They ripped off fins, unclipped weight belts, turned off your air, turned on your J valve, unclipped tanks from the carriers, etc. etc. all to put the student under stress to see how they handled it.

I discovered when I started working for the Club as a safety diver that there was only one way to fail that test and that was to break for the surface before they were done. It seemed like ten minutes but it was limited to one minute. Those kinds of tests are designed to put you under stress so you can see for yourself how you will react so you can improve yourself.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

Annoyed, ashamed.. should probably remove yourself from SB, turn over your keys and wallet and disappear into the night

Jk... not saying you shouldn't be able to do it, but donning gear in that manner isn't something that's normal when diving. You're fine.

I'll echo what other people said, time could have been better spent practicing buoyancy in the pool then this silly excercise.

 

[Searcaigh]

This was standard procedure with BSAC 35 years ago.

The first thing I went for was a mask, then I could see where a tank and reg was.

 

[aquaticj10]

Cheers for the input everyone, not as bothered by it anymore after some thinking lol, only have around 3hrs in the pool at the moment (for scuba anyway) so plenty of time to improve