Did your OW course prepare you to dive?

[Eric Sedletzky]

Do you have a report of this dive written down somewhere? You've got me curious!

It happened to me in Hawaii. Wearing a shorty, in warm water felt completely unnatural, and I felt an almost panic at first. It resolved quickly enough, but it was weird.

There was a trip report that I wrote on Diver.net many years ago. I’ll try and dig it up in their archives.
The warm water joke was kind of tongue in cheek, but I know what you mean. I went to Hawaii once and almost had a weird feeling that the lack of gear felt almost too easy and something was missing.
After about a minute it went away, then I was concerned that I was getting spoiled.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

There was a trip report that I wrote on Diver.net many years ago. I’ll try and dig it up in their archives.
The warm water joke was kind of tongue in cheek, but I know what you mean. I went to Hawaii once and almost had a weird feeling that the lack of gear felt almost too easy and something was missing.
After about a minute it went away, then I was concerned that I was getting spoiled.

The hardest dive for a cold water diver is the first one after a tropical vacation dive.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The hardest dive for a cold water diver is the first one after a tropical vacation dive.

That’s why I never go to warm water, it’s evil!

 

[CT-Rich]

The hardest dive for a cold water diver is the first one after a tropical vacation dive.

My first dive in Grand Cayman freaked me the f*** out. I splashed in 60‘ of the water with 200+ visibility. Us New Englanders are just not used to it. I thought I was going to fall or something. The loss of the claustrophobic cocoon of green was very disconcerting…

 

[Cthippo]

I've been out of the water for over a month and need to get back in.

On the other hand, it is supposed to snow next week, so...

 

[Trace Malinowski]

The hardest dive for a cold water diver is the first one after a tropical vacation dive.

Funny. I thought I suffered in silence with the same thought back when I used to take tropical vacations.

 

[J-Vo]

After OW I was completely competent to dive within my cert level in the conditions I was trained in without killing myself. And that was the goal of the training. At the time I thought I was a bada$$. This is what I have recently come to tell all OW or about to get OW divers who ask about advancing there diving:

OW teaches you how not to die under water, it does not teach you how to dive. Generally even OW instructors only learn how not to die while teaching others how not to die and keeping them alive in the process.

 

[tursiops]

Back in the late 80s early 90s myself and several friends dived many parts of the Saudi Red Sea coast that as far as we were aware had never been dived. We used basic maps, there was no GPS back then

We were using GPS in the late 1980s, but the units were large and expensive, and it operated under "selective availability." It was 1999 before a cellphone appeared with GPS embedded. Most;y we used Loran-C through that period.

 

[Searcaigh]

We were using GPS in the late 1980s, but the units were large and expensive, and it operated under "selective availability." It was 1999 before a cellphone appeared with GPS embedded. Most;y we used Loran-C through that period.

I was living in Saudi Arabia, such instruments were prohibited until the late 90s for private individuals.

What I should have written was "no GPS available for non-military personnel back then"

 

[tursiops]

I was living in Saudi Arabia, such instruments were prohibited until the late 90s for private individuals.

What I should have written was "no GPS available for non-military personnel back then"

I was on a US private research ship, operating out of the US. Yes, very different!