My wife and I were just in Akumal, Mexico for our wedding and honeymoon. We arrived and decided that two friends and my wife and I would try a discover scuba class offered at a local padi five star dive shop at the end of the week. We were told that they needed a deposit, and we went ahead and paid that. For the next five days, there was a tremendous amount of wind with very large waves breaking in the area. I thought to myself that they would probably have to cancel the dive. The day came and we went to the dive shop, and we were informed that they were going to be able to do the dive. A little back story on myself, I’m a full cave diver and dive frequently, and my wife has only ever snorkeled and the other couple with us the wife has an open water certification, but had not dove in years, and her husband had never been scuba diving.
We were introduced to our dm who sat with the four of us and another couple who were French; so in total six of us. They had all the gear set up and issued us weight belts, fins, and mask. He explained that we would be going into Akumal Bay in very shallow water to do the required skills of clearing water out of the mask, taking a reg out mouth and replacing it, drop the regulator and find it utilizing the arm sweep, and equalizing ears. We were told not to touch the inflators on the jacket bcd at all; although he did go over how to deflate and inflate the bcd. He also went over the basic hand signals of ok, out of air.
We were joined by another dive shop guide who was assigned to the French couple. We all got geared up and walked down to the bay and into the water. Our guide led us to a sandy circle in about five feet of water, and we all put our regs in our mouths and descended to perform our skills just shown to us. This is when things got interesting. Upon descending, the visibility was horrible. The dive master huddled us up and was in front making us do our required skills. Now mind you that I’m comfortable in low vis; my group However is not. Literally the other group was ten feet or less from our group and couldn’t be seen underwater at all. Once the skills were demonstrated (dm could only see if he was literally on top of you), we were told good job and to get on the boat. We loaded onto the boat and off we went towards the break in the reef to get out to the shallow reef site. I’ve been in several panga boats throughout my life and exiting the reef I literally thought we would be thrown off the boat. It was quite the ride out of the bay. We arrived a few minutes later to the dive site where there was a milk jug buoy with a down line. At this point, we are getting screamed at by the dive master to put regs in mouth and get up on the side walls to get off the boat quickly. The French couple does not understand this, and the dm keeps screaming more and more really adding to serenity of the situation lol. I would venture to say everyone on the boat was freaking out. My wife, who has never done a back roll into the ocean, was not having it, and the instructor sat next to her and basically grabbed her bcd and assisted her off the boat. Once in the water, I grabbed my wife, and we swam towards the down line so that the boat would not crush us from the large waves. The five of us reached the down line. The French couple and other dm were already descending at the time. Once on the line, things were very chaotic with the dm screaming at us to descend. I stayed with my wife, and we descended about ten feet. She was having equalization problems and basically panicking. She kept telling the dive master she was not ok and wanted to ascend. He came up to me and poked me in the chest flashing the ok sign, which I returned and then proceeded to tell me to descend and he would help my wife ( at this point I knew my wife was going to go back to the boat). As I descended and reached the bottom of the rope, the other dive master with the French couple reached his hand as if I needed to hold it. I gave him the ok and waited for the other two and dm to come down once my wife was back on the boat. My wife later told me that she continuously told him her ears weren’t equalizing and that she wanted to go up, and he kept telling her she was ok and to keep going down. She took matters into her own hands, because she no longer trusted the dm, and she went up. He luckily followed her and made sure she got back in the boat. Once all on the bottom, the visibility was really bad, and there was quite a lot of surge. The dm immediately used a double ender and clipped of one of the participants to himself and away we went diving and not seeing anything. I literally almost ran into a big turtle resting near a coral head. The dive itself was lackluster due to the visibility, and we ended it thirty minutes later. My computer read a max depth of 47 feet. Duration of 29 minutes. When we returned to the boat, my wife was super seasick and couldn’t even talk.
All in all, if you’d like scare your spouse away from ever diving again, this is the way to do it. My wife’s best wedding present ever.
In all seriousness though, I will never recommend or take part in a discover scuba again.
We were introduced to our dm who sat with the four of us and another couple who were French; so in total six of us. They had all the gear set up and issued us weight belts, fins, and mask. He explained that we would be going into Akumal Bay in very shallow water to do the required skills of clearing water out of the mask, taking a reg out mouth and replacing it, drop the regulator and find it utilizing the arm sweep, and equalizing ears. We were told not to touch the inflators on the jacket bcd at all; although he did go over how to deflate and inflate the bcd. He also went over the basic hand signals of ok, out of air.
We were joined by another dive shop guide who was assigned to the French couple. We all got geared up and walked down to the bay and into the water. Our guide led us to a sandy circle in about five feet of water, and we all put our regs in our mouths and descended to perform our skills just shown to us. This is when things got interesting. Upon descending, the visibility was horrible. The dive master huddled us up and was in front making us do our required skills. Now mind you that I’m comfortable in low vis; my group However is not. Literally the other group was ten feet or less from our group and couldn’t be seen underwater at all. Once the skills were demonstrated (dm could only see if he was literally on top of you), we were told good job and to get on the boat. We loaded onto the boat and off we went towards the break in the reef to get out to the shallow reef site. I’ve been in several panga boats throughout my life and exiting the reef I literally thought we would be thrown off the boat. It was quite the ride out of the bay. We arrived a few minutes later to the dive site where there was a milk jug buoy with a down line. At this point, we are getting screamed at by the dive master to put regs in mouth and get up on the side walls to get off the boat quickly. The French couple does not understand this, and the dm keeps screaming more and more really adding to serenity of the situation lol. I would venture to say everyone on the boat was freaking out. My wife, who has never done a back roll into the ocean, was not having it, and the instructor sat next to her and basically grabbed her bcd and assisted her off the boat. Once in the water, I grabbed my wife, and we swam towards the down line so that the boat would not crush us from the large waves. The five of us reached the down line. The French couple and other dm were already descending at the time. Once on the line, things were very chaotic with the dm screaming at us to descend. I stayed with my wife, and we descended about ten feet. She was having equalization problems and basically panicking. She kept telling the dive master she was not ok and wanted to ascend. He came up to me and poked me in the chest flashing the ok sign, which I returned and then proceeded to tell me to descend and he would help my wife ( at this point I knew my wife was going to go back to the boat). As I descended and reached the bottom of the rope, the other dive master with the French couple reached his hand as if I needed to hold it. I gave him the ok and waited for the other two and dm to come down once my wife was back on the boat. My wife later told me that she continuously told him her ears weren’t equalizing and that she wanted to go up, and he kept telling her she was ok and to keep going down. She took matters into her own hands, because she no longer trusted the dm, and she went up. He luckily followed her and made sure she got back in the boat. Once all on the bottom, the visibility was really bad, and there was quite a lot of surge. The dm immediately used a double ender and clipped of one of the participants to himself and away we went diving and not seeing anything. I literally almost ran into a big turtle resting near a coral head. The dive itself was lackluster due to the visibility, and we ended it thirty minutes later. My computer read a max depth of 47 feet. Duration of 29 minutes. When we returned to the boat, my wife was super seasick and couldn’t even talk.
All in all, if you’d like scare your spouse away from ever diving again, this is the way to do it. My wife’s best wedding present ever.
In all seriousness though, I will never recommend or take part in a discover scuba again.
