Phishie
Registered
I am a new diver, (15 dives, just over 8 hours of bottom time).
Yesterday (Oct 12) I did a dive to about 60 feet. Other than my hands being cold (no gloves) in the termocline it was just a normal dive. No shivering or anything just cold hands. Good vis though so I always had the bottom as a reference point.
On my second dive though, it was my first time with low vis. No reference other than the other divers I was following. It seemed like we were continually turning left in my head. After a minute or two of this I realized something was wrong. I checked my compass and saw we weren't changing direction and found a reference point of a non-moving bouy on the bottom I could barely see. I could clearly tell we were slowly going straight but my body kept feeling like I was turning left. Almost like if you drink too much and get the "helicopters" when you close your eyes. We called the dive early due to another student getting low on air a few minutes later. I was only at 40-50 feet during all of this and I've gone deeper (up to 70ft) on most of my past dives without this happening so I couldn't imagine it being nitrogen narcosis at such a shallow depth. I was thinking maybe vertigo.
I had a short and shallow third dive afterwards with good vis and a constant view of the bottom for reference and had no problems and the feeling was gone.
Today though, looking at the monitor as I'm typing this, I'm back to getting the feeling again like my body is continually turning left. But if I focus my eyes on something far away it stops.
The only thing I can figure is that my inner ear maybe is a little out of whack or something after diving and just needs to finish adjusting? It's just annoying and a little nauseating. Not enough to really bother me but enough that it could throw off my diving if I don't have a frame of reference. I've never had this issue before (outside of the influence of alcohol anyway).
Any ideas?
Yesterday (Oct 12) I did a dive to about 60 feet. Other than my hands being cold (no gloves) in the termocline it was just a normal dive. No shivering or anything just cold hands. Good vis though so I always had the bottom as a reference point.
On my second dive though, it was my first time with low vis. No reference other than the other divers I was following. It seemed like we were continually turning left in my head. After a minute or two of this I realized something was wrong. I checked my compass and saw we weren't changing direction and found a reference point of a non-moving bouy on the bottom I could barely see. I could clearly tell we were slowly going straight but my body kept feeling like I was turning left. Almost like if you drink too much and get the "helicopters" when you close your eyes. We called the dive early due to another student getting low on air a few minutes later. I was only at 40-50 feet during all of this and I've gone deeper (up to 70ft) on most of my past dives without this happening so I couldn't imagine it being nitrogen narcosis at such a shallow depth. I was thinking maybe vertigo.
I had a short and shallow third dive afterwards with good vis and a constant view of the bottom for reference and had no problems and the feeling was gone.
Today though, looking at the monitor as I'm typing this, I'm back to getting the feeling again like my body is continually turning left. But if I focus my eyes on something far away it stops.
The only thing I can figure is that my inner ear maybe is a little out of whack or something after diving and just needs to finish adjusting? It's just annoying and a little nauseating. Not enough to really bother me but enough that it could throw off my diving if I don't have a frame of reference. I've never had this issue before (outside of the influence of alcohol anyway).
Any ideas?
