Anyone else really nervous in the beginning?

[nldunn]

Hi all,
I’m not new to scuba board or really to diving but I’m very inexperienced. Got certified NAUI in 1989 and then never dove because we had kids. Did a refresher in Cozumel last year to 60 feet and I was so relieved when it was over. Did another refresher type dive yesterday in Curacao and I was so nervous but it went well. She knew I didn’t want to do 60 feet again so we went 32 feet and I really relaxed and loved it.
Doing a guided dive today and they said they can’t keep to 30 - 35 feet and I feel so anxious. I love the ocean, I can free dive of sorts and am a good swimmer but going deep is not comfortable for me yet. I may bail and go back to where I went yesterday although this is all paid for.
I do love it when I feel safe. It’s otherworldly down there.
Any advice more than welcome, including mental exercises.
Thanks,
Nancy

 

[Searcaigh]

Follow your gut, stick with what you're comfortable with, it's all about fun .

Just make ti clear to the instructor / guide what you want to do.

 

[rmorgan]

For a couple of years, my wife was very conscious of her air consumption (which was, not surprisingly, a bit high), and she stayed 15 or 20' above the group. Now, she's a diver others ask how to improve their air consumption. So, maybe go to 45' today if you're comfortable there, and stay with the group. Otherwise, you might hire a highly-recommended private guide for a few dives, and make sure she knows what you want to accomplish. You were comfortable at 30', so you're well on your way.

 

[nldunn]

Follow your gut, stick with what you're comfortable with, it's all about fun .

Just make ti clear to the instructor / guide what you want to do.

Thank you’ headed there in a bit. We shall see!!!

 

[nldunn]

For a couple of years, my wife was very conscious of her air consumption (which was, not surprisingly, a bit high), and she stayed 15 or 20' above the group. Now, she's a diver others ask how to improve their air consumption. So, maybe go to 45' today if you're comfortable there, and stay with the group. Otherwise, you might hire a highly-recommended private guide for a few dives, and make sure she knows what you want to accomplish. You were comfortable at 30', so you're well on your way.

I think they don’t go deeper than 40 or 45 so we will see how it goes! Thank you!

 

[johndiver999]

What exactly scares you about depth? Think about that realistically and logically and you might get some relief. The difference between 30 and 50 ft is not that much in most situations.

From my personal experience, I dove for years from the beach and in this place the max depth was 22 feet or so. That depth begins to just feel normal (NOT shallow) and when I would occasionally go on boat and go to 80-90, it always felt really deep to me... but after a few dozen dives you get accustomed to it. Before that I had dove for years in 80-90 and never felt like it was unusual or deep or particularly challenging.

Now I dive to around 130 a few times a week and it does feel different and a little harder to function and it is more stressful mentally, but it does not make me scared or even uncomfortable.

I think the best approach is to gradually move from shallower dives to deeper ones, but do nothing that makes you significantly uncomfortable. A slow progression will probably help you and perhaps carrying your own redundant air supply will give you a lot of comfort - it does for me. I won't dive past 60 feet normally without it.

As a new diver, you probably want your dives to be mildly challenging, but not scary and certainly not tortuous. Don't extrapolate how you feel, after 6-8 dives to the way you will feel in the future- most divers can get accustomed to reasonable depths without a lot of drama, if they take a conservative approach and don't end up scaring themselves (too much).

 

[SouthernSharktoothDiver]

If possible, I'd recommend spending some time just diving a simple, safe location to get comfortable. Whenever I need to try something new with diving, be it equipment or a new technique or something, I go to a lake, where the water is still and not very deep, and I spend an AL80 or so familiarizing myself with whatever it is. Obviously, bring a buddy for safety, but ideally your buddy would be a friend or someone like that, that way you're not stressing about inconveniencing a group or a dive guide.

Calm will come in time, and once you're comfortable with the still, shallow water, start heading deeper, or to places where there's faster currents.

 

[Anbaric Cog]

I’d echo what SouthernSharktooth Diver said. Find a shallow calm place to dive and just spend a few dives getting totally comfortable and developing some muscle memory—especially about anything that makes you uncomfortable eg a mask flood, losing your regulator etc
A resort without much current but a nice house reef would be ideal. Eg CocoView
A calm buddy who can just hang with you is perfect

Just give yourself time Heck you’re just back in the water

Best wishes

 

[34109411]

Hi all,
I’m not new to scuba board or really to diving but I’m very inexperienced. Got certified NAUI in 1989 and then never dove because we had kids. Did a refresher in Cozumel last year to 60 feet and I was so relieved when it was over. Did another refresher type dive yesterday in Curacao and I was so nervous but it went well. She knew I didn’t want to do 60 feet again so we went 32 feet and I really relaxed and loved it.
Doing a guided dive today and they said they can’t keep to 30 - 35 feet and I feel so anxious. I love the ocean, I can free dive of sorts and am a good swimmer but going deep is not comfortable for me yet. I may bail and go back to where I went yesterday although this is all paid for.
I do love it when I feel safe. It’s otherworldly down there.
Any advice more than welcome, including mental exercises.
Thanks,
Nancy

you decide how deep you go and when you feel your max depth you start from there to go little bit deeper.

For the last two years i usually stick around 40 feet.

Be safe.

 

[nldunn]

What exactly scares you about depth? Think about that realistically and logically and you might get some relief. The difference between 30 and 50 ft is not that much in most situations.

From my personal experience, I dove for years from the beach and in this place the max depth was 22 feet or so. That depth begins to just feel normal (NOT shallow) and when I would occasionally go on boat and go to 80-90, it always felt really deep to me... but after a few dozen dives you get accustomed to it. Before that I had dove for years in 80-90 and never felt like it was unusual or deep or particularly challenging.

Now I dive to around 130 a few times a week and it does feel different and a little harder to function and it is more stressful mentally, but it does not make me scared or even uncomfortable.

I think the best approach is to gradually move from shallower dives to deeper ones, but do nothing that makes you significantly uncomfortable. A slow progression will probably help you and perhaps carrying your own redundant air supply will give you a lot of comfort - it does for me. I won't dive past 60 feet normally without it.

As a new diver, you probably want your dives to be mildly challenging, but not scary and certainly not tortuous. Don't extrapolate how you feel, after 6-8 dives to the way you will feel in the future- most divers can get accustomed to reasonable depths without a lot of drama, if they take a conservative approach and don't end up scaring themselves (too much).

Hi,
Thank you for your response - you are 100% correct that I don't want to scare myself. I love the ocean, I really do love diving and if I scare myself, I won't dive again and I don't want that to happen.
Depth scares me, I think, because coming up in an emergency from 60 feet is very different from 24 feet. One of my check-out dives in NJ in 1989 was scary, as the sand was kicked up and we couldn't see a thing. I think that may have freaked me out because we didn't dive after that (kids) until last year and that was my last experience. So I want all good experiences for my first few dozen!!
Again, thank you,
Nancy