All good replys so far and I agree that you probably were overweighted. A common mistake that is better than being underweighted since youll need to hold a safety stop at 20 ft with a lower volume of air . Gloves would make feeling things difficult when starting out. Eventually you will get the hang of your buancy problem, but, do remember to equalize on decsent, possibly after every breath. You should be able to float at eye level with full lungs and an empty BC. Fine tune that with 500 psi in your tank at 20 ft and if you not having to hold yourself down to retain that depth you should be good to go. Good luck with it.
Bad experience on very first dive... looking for some advice
- Thread starter steve1122
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Don't give up on diving. You're far from a screwup. Nothing you did was that unusual for a new diver. You have very high expectations of yourself and that's a good thing. The fact that you went through all you did without panicking is something you should be proud of. I've had students panic without having half the issues you did.
Yes, you were overweighted. There's no doubt about it. You used your inflator and dump too much, but that's normal for a new diver. It takes a little time for your bouyancy to react when you add or dump air. It takes some experience to get the hang of it, but you will.
Next time, start clearing your ears much sooner, and do it often. You can begin clearing your ears before you even get in the water.
Masks fit differently with and without a hood. You didn't do anything wrong there. You traded out masks and solved the issue. Well done.
Good luck with your ears and look forward to getting back in the water.
Yes, you were overweighted. There's no doubt about it. You used your inflator and dump too much, but that's normal for a new diver. It takes a little time for your bouyancy to react when you add or dump air. It takes some experience to get the hang of it, but you will.
Next time, start clearing your ears much sooner, and do it often. You can begin clearing your ears before you even get in the water.
Masks fit differently with and without a hood. You didn't do anything wrong there. You traded out masks and solved the issue. Well done.
Good luck with your ears and look forward to getting back in the water.
Some X Dry
Contributor
I offer you the encouragement to get back on that horse. You made NO mistakes.... As stated the mistakes were made by those you hired for your training, supervision and most of all safety. Get the heck away from that instructor & DM!! At worst one of them should have met you on the surface. At best they would have been proactive and looking for the runaway diver and been there to intercept.
I to have had a blown ear and feel your pain.
You have taken the first positive step back towards the water by seeking to understand what happened. Kudos!! Take the time you have off to research for a competent instructor and expand your knowledge about all the different types of diving. This will help tremendously when it comes time to buy gear. You may find like many others that you would have made a different choice in gear set had you only knew. Take Care...
I to have had a blown ear and feel your pain.
You have taken the first positive step back towards the water by seeking to understand what happened. Kudos!! Take the time you have off to research for a competent instructor and expand your knowledge about all the different types of diving. This will help tremendously when it comes time to buy gear. You may find like many others that you would have made a different choice in gear set had you only knew. Take Care...
I remember having a very tough time with buoyancy during my first dives...tended to float upward because I was still primarily relying on inflating/deflating my BCD in an attempt to achieve neutral buoyancy.
One thing to keep in mind is this...the shallower the depth, the more difficult it is to maintain neutral bouyancy. A slight degree of inflation in your BCD will have more dramatic results. So at the depth you described, this is where is can truly be the most difficult.
As others have said, it would be helpful to recheck and see that you are properly weighted (be sure to add about 5 pounds if using an aluminum tank as it becomes more buoyant when you get close to 1500 psi). In other words, you'll have more difficulty staying down if extra weight is not added to account for usage of an aluminum tank.
One technique that I like (as a reminder regarding equalization) is to descend with your fingers already in position to pinch your nose and blow gently (equalize). In other words, prior to descending, you are set to equalize.
I also agree that your ability to endure this and NOT panic is a great sign!! It sounds like you moved into a problem solving mentality, yet had just not had enough practice to "make things happen".
Hang in there...you can do it!
One thing to keep in mind is this...the shallower the depth, the more difficult it is to maintain neutral bouyancy. A slight degree of inflation in your BCD will have more dramatic results. So at the depth you described, this is where is can truly be the most difficult.
As others have said, it would be helpful to recheck and see that you are properly weighted (be sure to add about 5 pounds if using an aluminum tank as it becomes more buoyant when you get close to 1500 psi). In other words, you'll have more difficulty staying down if extra weight is not added to account for usage of an aluminum tank.
One technique that I like (as a reminder regarding equalization) is to descend with your fingers already in position to pinch your nose and blow gently (equalize). In other words, prior to descending, you are set to equalize.
I also agree that your ability to endure this and NOT panic is a great sign!! It sounds like you moved into a problem solving mentality, yet had just not had enough practice to "make things happen".
Hang in there...you can do it!
Bubbletrubble
Contributor
@steve1122: With all gear being the same, a diver will need more lead weight when transitioning from a fresh water pool to the ocean.
Unless you conducted your confined water dives in a saltwater pool you should have adjusted the amount of ballast for the greater density of saltwater.
How much more weight should you need?
There's no substitute for a proper in-water weight check...but, for an "average"-sized person who was properly weighted in the pool, about an extra 6-8 lbs. sounds right for the ocean. It's roughly 2.5% of the total weight of you + all of your gear.
Although others have already concluded that you were over-weighted, I'm not 100% convinced that was the case. It's pretty difficult to diagnose the issue over the Internet without witnessing firsthand what occurred. The best approach would be to do a weight check -- then you'd know.
There are a few different ways to do a proper weight check. Consult your OW class materials and commit to memory how to do one. My instructor had us conduct weight checks at the beginning and end of every class dive. Proper weighting is very important. It impacts both safety and comfort.
The thinking behind "proper" weighting is that you need to have enough weight to be able to hold a shallow safety stop at the end of the dive with no air inside your BCD and an empty/near empty tank. This means that, at the beginning of the dive with a full tank, empty BCD, and holding a normal breath, you should never be more negatively buoyant than the weight of your gas. For an AL80 tank, the weight of the gas is 5-6 lbs.
A properly weighted diver shouldn't have to struggle during the initial descent. It's good practice not to dump all of the air out of your BCD. (FYI, if you are over-weighted and dump all of the air out, you will surely become a dirt dart!) Try dumping just enough air from the BCD so that the water is at eye-level. Make sure that you are not kicking or dog-paddling. Be calm. Breathe normally. Get comfortable. Then try exhaling a little more deeply. You should begin to descend very gently. Stop at a depth of 2-3 feet by adding a tiny puff of air to your BCD. Establish neutral buoyancy. Keep stopping every 1 or 2 ft. during the initial descent. A truly controlled ascent means being able to arrest the descent at any depth in the water column. Equalize your ears early and often (continuously if possible) during the initial descent. Click on the link in my sig to check out Dr. Kay's website on diver "ear fear." He has a nice essay which describes several different ear equalization techniques. Try them all. The pinch-the-nose-and-blow method (Valsalva) doesn't work that well for me. Find out what technique works best for you.
Practice all of this in a pool. If you can't conduct a proper controlled descent in a pool, then you probably won't be able to do it in the ocean. Be assertive and tell your instructor that you need more time to practice before doing the OW class dives.
With regard to your ear injury, you really need to see a physician who can do a decent ear exam, determine if a problem exists, and propose a treatment. If you ruptured your eardrum, then you should not be diving until it's healed. A bad eardrum rupture could take several weeks or perhaps a few months to completely heal. Feel better soon...
It's a tremendous transition for students, to go from minimal exposure protection and light gear in the pool, to heavy exposure protection, hoods and gloves, and heavy weights in open water. I've been scratching my head for months about how to make the process easier, but the simple fact is that the two conditions are SO different, that there really isn't any way to do it. You can't ask people to wear heavy neoprene in warm swimming pools, at least not for very long!
Buoyancy issues in new students are depressingly common, and most of us who teach where students are in heavy wetsuits have learned to have an eye in the back of our heads (and the sides, and the top) to look for errant students. A basic DM skill is intercepting the buoyant student and returning him to depth! What really perturbs me about your story (in addition to the fact that you made it to the surface AND back underwater without your instructor) was how fast you were descending -- the majority of our students have trouble even GETTING underwater, let alone falling fast. I agree that it sounds as though you may have been seriously overweighted, which makes everybody's life difficult.
At any rate, I hope you can get through the anxiety, and try again. Insist on a proper weight check before you get into water deeper than you can stand up in, and if you end up on the surface, collect your instructor and head for something which is a visual and tactile reference for re-descent.
If you cannot get through this, you can always do your open water dives someplace warm and clear, by referral.
Buoyancy issues in new students are depressingly common, and most of us who teach where students are in heavy wetsuits have learned to have an eye in the back of our heads (and the sides, and the top) to look for errant students. A basic DM skill is intercepting the buoyant student and returning him to depth! What really perturbs me about your story (in addition to the fact that you made it to the surface AND back underwater without your instructor) was how fast you were descending -- the majority of our students have trouble even GETTING underwater, let alone falling fast. I agree that it sounds as though you may have been seriously overweighted, which makes everybody's life difficult.
At any rate, I hope you can get through the anxiety, and try again. Insist on a proper weight check before you get into water deeper than you can stand up in, and if you end up on the surface, collect your instructor and head for something which is a visual and tactile reference for re-descent.
If you cannot get through this, you can always do your open water dives someplace warm and clear, by referral.
You had problems for a limited number of reasons that are all correctable. First, you dove in equipment (exposure gear) you had not dove in before. ALWAYS use new gear in the pool first. A controlled environment lets you "test it out," especially as a new diver. Second, ALWAYS add and vent air from the bc in small bursts. Third, you were likely overweighted. That meant you had more air in you bc when neutral, and more air in the bc means greater variations in buoyancy with changes in depth.
As you now know, there is a big difference between diving in a pool in a swim suit, and in murky water in a full exposure suit with hood and gloves. I am a bit surprised your instructor did not suggest at least a short session with the exposure gear on, and also at the instructor's failure to have a closer awareness as to your weighting. Correct these things and you will do fine. as a final little tip, put your mask on under you hood, not over it. I cut my hood faces to allow this. Also, hoods catch air- Put a small hole or 2 in the top to vent, or press it our now and then.
DivemasterDennis
As you now know, there is a big difference between diving in a pool in a swim suit, and in murky water in a full exposure suit with hood and gloves. I am a bit surprised your instructor did not suggest at least a short session with the exposure gear on, and also at the instructor's failure to have a closer awareness as to your weighting. Correct these things and you will do fine. as a final little tip, put your mask on under you hood, not over it. I cut my hood faces to allow this. Also, hoods catch air- Put a small hole or 2 in the top to vent, or press it our now and then.
DivemasterDennis
Dennis, do you take your OW students into a heated pool in full exposure protection? Our OW students dive in 14 mm of neoprene. I think they would have heat stroke if they had to get into it in the warm, humid indoor pool building, and then get into 84 degree water.
You can put students in exposure suits for that kind of transistion for a limited time. At least have them do skills and manipulate gear with gloves on. A better solution however is to not do OW dive one by the book. Use it instead for determining proper weighting, establishing buoyancy control and trim, and just get the student comfortable in the gear. Forget about tours. Leading a tour with students bouncing off the bottom, popping to the surface, and getting separated from their buddy and the group does nothing but add to the stress they feel. Treat it as an additional pool session but in OW.
When an instructor is able to get students in OW in the same gear they had in the pool it may not be necessary to do this. This is also another verification of the value of task loading students in the pool beyond the skills being performed. Gear doff and dons, bailouts, no mask drills, and blacked out masks reinforce the need to be able to locate every item the diver is wearing by feel. You should not need to see to find an inflator, dump, release, or alternate air. Especially if the students are going to be doing checkouts in conditions where the vis could go bad or is low to begin with.
Another item is to reduce the number of people on the dives. If you cannot see your instructor, he/she cannot see you and unless they have a DM or other assistant you can see and that can see you they are not in control of the class. You are supposed to be under direct supervision. The OP was not. An injury resulted and that was completely preventable. There is no excuse for that.
One of the reason I will only take one buddy pair at a time on OW dives one and two. I don;t have a DM. Therefore I need to be in complete control of the situation. On dives three, four, and five I will combine groups IF conditions allow me to see everyone in the group at all times. But then the most I will take is 5 students. Two buddy teams and one buddied with me. And we all stay close enough to render assistance to each other.
If the group is like the family I certed I will have them switch up buddies during the dive and have them do air shares, no mask swims, etc with different buddies during the swim. It also reinforces the need to stay close. And buddy skills start on day one of the course and are strictly enforced throughout. No single file swims ever.
When an instructor is able to get students in OW in the same gear they had in the pool it may not be necessary to do this. This is also another verification of the value of task loading students in the pool beyond the skills being performed. Gear doff and dons, bailouts, no mask drills, and blacked out masks reinforce the need to be able to locate every item the diver is wearing by feel. You should not need to see to find an inflator, dump, release, or alternate air. Especially if the students are going to be doing checkouts in conditions where the vis could go bad or is low to begin with.
Another item is to reduce the number of people on the dives. If you cannot see your instructor, he/she cannot see you and unless they have a DM or other assistant you can see and that can see you they are not in control of the class. You are supposed to be under direct supervision. The OP was not. An injury resulted and that was completely preventable. There is no excuse for that.
One of the reason I will only take one buddy pair at a time on OW dives one and two. I don;t have a DM. Therefore I need to be in complete control of the situation. On dives three, four, and five I will combine groups IF conditions allow me to see everyone in the group at all times. But then the most I will take is 5 students. Two buddy teams and one buddied with me. And we all stay close enough to render assistance to each other.
If the group is like the family I certed I will have them switch up buddies during the dive and have them do air shares, no mask swims, etc with different buddies during the swim. It also reinforces the need to stay close. And buddy skills start on day one of the course and are strictly enforced throughout. No single file swims ever.
Bubbletrubble
Contributor
That's pretty funny advice.
I'm all for testing gear out in a benign environment, but that benign environment doesn't necessarily have to be a pool.
I try out all of my new scuba gear in a "pool" called the Pacific Ocean.
It's free, and it's always open.
Furthermore, it's not always practical to do pool practice with scuba gear.
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