Bad Experience During Training

[TMHeimer]

I'm fairly new to scuba; I've got 83 dives, all done with the same instructor/buddy.

When we started, I ran into some really unexpected mental issues. I'm extremely comfortable in the water, been swimming in pools, lakes, rivers since I was a kid. Very relaxed swimming underwater with my eyes open.

So, it was a serious shock to find out that my subconcious didn't believe that I could sit underwater in shallow depth and breathe from my regulator. I was close to panic. I'd drop down, start gasping, and surface so that I could breathe.

My instructor was just as surprised as I was - but he was patient and worked me through it. One of the exercises that I did was sitting on dry land, with mask and snorkle on, just breathing. Then same exercise in the shower.

Got past it, and my subconcious mind seems to have accepted that I can breathe underwater if I have the gear on.

I could not have worked through this with an instructor like the one that the OP described. I probably would have walked away from scuba as a failed experience.

Because my instructor was top-notch I've got my AOW and Enriched Air certs and reservations made for July/August. Surgeon who did my rotator cuff surgery has cleared me to dive by that time, otherwise I'd be going sooner.

It's good you had that instructor. I would be shocked as well that someone with your in water experience would have a problem with scuba. From my time assisting on courses I recall it was those with little water experience that had problems basically with being underwater.

 

[SlugLife]

"you should know this already" and "use common sense"

For an open-water course, those are words I'd hope an instructor would never use. Students absorb a lot of material, and what bits of information stick with individuals students better or worse changes from one person to the next. That's just a sign of a bad teacher, of any subject.

Next, "common sense" in scuba-diving is not something I'd recommend to a brand new barely trained diver. There are far too many counter-intuitive things within scuba-diving. Our "common sense" or instincts & experience are trained as land animals 99% of our life, and then we do something crazy by going 60ft underwater where we don't naturally belong.

For example, if you run OOA at 60ft deep, the "common sense" thing to do is hold your breath and rocket to the surface, BOTH of which are absolutely the wrong thing to do.

Then when I was putting in my weights I asked him how many I needed because I didn't remember and he seemed kind of angry about that.

These are things you need to keep track of. However, from the perspective of a teacher, I might be wondering if I failed to clearly emphasize or clearly teach the thing the student forgot. I seem to remember in my OW course, they required us to keep a dive-log to complete the course and instructed us to include several things like added-weight, temperature, depth, time, location, who our dive buddy was and a few other things.

 

[gng4life]

Sorry about your experience but I agree with most comments on here that you are the customer, you should be happy with the service or go somewhere else. If you already paid in full, as long as you don't feel in any danger, just tough out the last two dives and be done with it. You can always get refresher courses with other instructors to help put you at ease before you go trotting off in the wild, blue sea. This will help clear up any gaps in your instruction.

One thing to get used to now is to write everything down! Either electronically (with backups) or in a notebook. There are so many variables with diving that until you get extremely experienced and are doing it constantly that you will not remember everything. Even then, I have noticed well-experienced divers and instructors keep a checklist on every dive and go through it methodically and double check everything.

 

[Germie]

I read here some things that are not completely valid for Cuba. Of course, an instructor must not be rude.
I don't know where the TS learned diving in the country as it is a big country.
But from some experiences, not everything is as easy as some write here.

To go to another divecenter is very difficult in Playa Larga or Playa giron, and this is the place where most shore dives are done in the country. If you live in Cuba, you probably don't have a car to go where you want. There is a big fuelshortage. Tourists are in an advantage to get transport and fuel.
The divecenter in Giron is small. I don't know how many instructors there are, but I don't think you can go to another. At least you cannot go to another divecenter. There is only 1. The divecenter in Larga was closed when we were there.
So in Bahia de Cochinos with a lot of very nice Bonaire like divesites (if you could rent a car and tanks, it was just go and jump in in the 35km of coast), but there are not a lot of divers. Also everywhere the stairs from entrances are broken as the country has no money for it.
The diving in the divecenter in Giron is not very well organised, dives of 45 minutes. 1 to the left and 1 to the right, done in the morning, both dives on the same spot. Everybody goes diving, even if you have never been in the water. Happely we found this out before our trip and found a private guide that had 4 really good days with us, as we were experienced, dove long and he did not have to help us. He also was absolutely not rude. Our dives were 75 minutes, 20 bars left in the tanks.

There is 3 tot 6 hours a day no electricity. You don't know at what time of the day this happens. Sometimes it is only 1 time for a couple of hours, sometimes it is the whole night, sometimes it is twice a day for a couple of hours. So this can also cause you cannot use the compressor to fill tanks. Most people don't have aggregates and there is no fuel for them.

The prices for diving are made by the government, so you pay everywhere the same. In Playa Giron it is 25 dollar per dive.

There is teached for UCUC, that is more or less SSI, but then for instructors that are not working in a divecenter, they can use UCUC. The certs are worldwide recognised, so that is not a problem. (but for most Cubans, travelling is difficult). I have seen SSI flags in Varadero, but I cannot recommend diving there, it is quite boring. The wreck is nice. But a long way by boat (1.5 hour, our boat had 1 of the 2 motors broken). Other divespots I did not like (Aquario, Tuberone reef, etc). But the people from divecenters I met there were very friendly.

We have had different tanks on each dive in Giron, from steel 12 liter short tanks (the ones we really don't like at home) till ali80's. So the amount of weight we needed was changing from dive to dive (but we are experienced divers, so we know how much it is changing between tanks).

Also we did not have to gear up ourselves. The man from the car did it every time. So it is a little bit like in Asia, you don't have to gear up yourself, so you don't get really routinated in this if you are a beginner. Normally in a beginner course you have to do all the time yourself. But I have seen in Asia that due to some time issues the instructors did it. So maybe here also in some cases?

So the instructor must not be rude, but some advices are difficult to do in Cuba. Find another divecenter can be very hard.

 

[DiveLvr]

A couple of things:

1) By Dive 2 of OWD certification, you should definitely know how to assemble your gear. By that point you have done it, what, 6 or 7 times already (including your confined water sessions)? However, forgetting how to do so doesn't excuse your instructor being rude about it. It should have been used as a teaching moment.

2) You should have been keeping track of your weighting. You are supposed to be logging each of your dives, including your first open water training dive, so you should have known how much lead you required. But, similar to what I wrote above, forgetting to do so is no reason for an instructor to get angry or rude about it. You are a student and are still learning. He should have handled it better, in my opinion.

EDIT: Another weight check should have been done at the start of Dive 2, so your instructor should have sorted out your weighting then.

3) Without knowing the local conditions and the reef, exit/entry site, etc., it's difficult to comment on the issue with your air pressure and his fast swim to get back while you were breathing off his octo. Part of your training (confined water) was breathing off of a buddy's octo while swimming, just in case there is ever a reason why you must share air but ascending immediately isn't really a good option. It's impossible to know why he decided to swim fast, or even if he was swimming fast (we don't have his side of the story), but generally it would have been preferable to ascend quite shallow - say to 20ft/6m or so - and do your safety stop as you swam with some deliberate speed but not so fast as to make you consume too much air. There is a balance between the two, however, depending on the conditions, current, boat traffic above, distance to the exit point, etc.

4) You write that he suddenly took out your regulator. Assuming this is correct, that's a no-no. As long as you are conscious, YOU are in control of your regulator, when you take it out, and when you put an octo in. He should have signaled to you to switch from his octo back to your primary.

Overall it sounds like this guy hates his job and has no patience for students. If you feel comfortable, I'd suggest speaking with his superior or the dive op manager about your issues. Again, though, there are two sides to every story and we are only getting your impression of events.

In the meantime, best of luck to you as you finish your certification, and I hope that the next two dives go more smoothly!

I was certified in 1971. Then we had 4 weeks training 2x a week. We had roughly 6 pools sessions, 4 of those before OW1. I have a friend my age just now taking a class. He did most of the academics online. He had 1 pool session (with 2 others) then OW1 with the other 2, both did not complete the dive. My friend has schedule to take OW2 season in 2 weeks. All totaled he had 1 pool and 2 OW sessions. That just doesn’t seem to be enough time hands on.

 

[OMyMyOHellYes]

I was certified in 1971. Then we had 4 weeks training 2x a week. We had roughly 6 pools sessions, 4 of those before OW1. I have a friend my age just now taking a class. He did most of the academics online. He had 1 pool session (with 2 others) then OW1 with the other 2, both did not complete the dive. My friend has schedule to take OW2 season in 2 weeks. All totaled he had 1 pool and 2 OW sessions. That just doesn’t seem to be enough time hands on.

It's about certification, not education?

 

[RobPNW]

So called common sense comes with experience.

 

[boulderjohn]

I was certified in 1971. Then we had 4 weeks training 2x a week. We had roughly 6 pools sessions, 4 of those before OW1. I have a friend my age just now taking a class. He did most of the academics online. He had 1 pool session (with 2 others) then OW1 with the other 2, both did not complete the dive. My friend has schedule to take OW2 season in 2 weeks. All totaled he had 1 pool and 2 OW sessions. That just doesn’t seem to be enough time hands on.

It isn't. It is not possible to meet standards in that amount of time.

 

[Scubafitravers]

That sucks! I am an instructor and have seen a lot of that happening recently. It is so important for instructors to be patient and kind, it's our job to make great, happy, and comfortable divers - not to yell at people! We get paid to guide divers in their training, which requires a lot of patience and understanding. You should never feel like you don't belong or that you are not good enough when learning a new sport, diving should be inclusive and encouraging for newcomers. Your instructor should never have put you in a situation where you were using their octo, they should have checked and known how much weight you needed at that point, they should have known your air consumption rate, and they should have been supportive! I hope that if you decide to continue your training, you find someone more qualified and patient, it seriously will improve the learning experience!

 

[Allen-1]

I was certified in 1971. Then we had 4 weeks training 2x a week. We had roughly 6 pools sessions, 4 of those before OW1. I have a friend my age just now taking a class. He did most of the academics online. He had 1 pool session (with 2 others) then OW1 with the other 2, both did not complete the dive. My friend has schedule to take OW2 season in 2 weeks. All totaled he had 1 pool and 2 OW sessions. That just doesn’t seem to be enough time hands on.

My instruction has been a little unique, my brother's a certified instructor and he taught me, one on one instruction at CocoView. We were there for two weeks in October of 2022 where I qualified for my OW and Nitrox certifications. I was reasonably comfortable in the water when we left; (I had some initial unexpected issues that I've posted about elsewhere).

Went back in October of 2023 for another two weeks, qualified for my AOW that trip, and got a lot more comfortable in the water.

Over the course of those four weeks, I did 80 dives. That's an awful lot of time underater compared to what you posted above - but I still feel like a novice diver; I'm certainly a "vacation" diver.

I saw a lot of divers over the course of those four weeks. Some of them are quite simply phenomenal, like Steve from Texas. He just sits there in the water, motionless, watching things. Lita who goes out with a 63cf tank and goes for an hour. Lou who manages a camera while remaining graceful and in control. Carol, who's damn near deaf, yet communicates perfectly well underwater.

Then there are the others who kick the crap out of the reef because they NEED to get their picture - and you look at them and think - you should spend more time on your balance/buoyancy and less on the camera. Seeing some of these, I questioned just how much instruction they got - and how much attention they paid.

I've got some confidence in myself at this point, but I certainly wouldn't want to buddy up with someone who has less time/skill than me. I think I can take care of myself, but I'm not sure I could take care of someone else. If something goes wrong that's at the edge or beyond my ability - I'd like to have a buddy who could help me.