Do you remember your first breath on SCUBA and how you felt?

[Beach_Bunny]

My first breath off of a regulator was in the fire academy when I was 18 and after we did out first course and had all mastered breathing out of tube and mouth piece our instructor said "Now you kids have a choice on two things you can do in life with this skill, being a fireman or scuba diver."

My first breath underwater in class was amazing, I remember taking it in like a yoga breath and sinking as I let it out. It was amazing. Here I am sitting in a swimming pool at 10pm on a friday night thinking how cool it is. I have been hooked ever since. My first open water breath was funny because I thought I was going to bite my mouth piece off since the water was so cold when I sucked in.

 

[piikki]

I took my first breaths from reg under water in the shallow end of pool, and for me too the breathing part was unremarkable. I remember being a little suspicious and using my tongue to guard a bit against possible water. Mostly I was just relieved to submerge because I was boiling hot. I totally trusted it will deliver air, and was just curious to see how it felt.

I was in arm-lock with 9 other OW students. The instructor had told us to kneel, and arms were locked so we would hold each others down. Looking back, it’s kind of silly set up for anyone who was nervous! Nobody had panic issues but several of us were having floating issues (I think the instructor forgot to emphasize we need to empty the BC, like really empty it). Whole line-up was struggling to kneel with fins on, falling forwards or into each others.

It was certainly not a calm experience. I don’t even so much recall the breath but I recall trying to remain on the bottom, and seeing a blue fin float down towards the deep end. I was worried because it was like my buddy’s fin. I had no trouble breathing – while waiting for the instructor to assist the ones with trouble with their gear I wanted to play with the reg but we had been told not to remove it from mouth or purge etc.

 

[Spratman]

It was awesome. It was like, I knew I was breathing underwater, but my brain was screaming to me, YOU CAN'T DO THIS, IDIOT!!

Took about two minutes to be cruising around the bottom of the pool.

 

[olmic]

My first breath on SCUBA was when I was like 12 years old. The father of one of my classmates had a dive shop, and us 5-6 boys went out on something which I guess was PADI's Discover Scuba Diving - a little theory and then into the Ocean (Skagerrak - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skagerrak). We walked out till we were in neck-deep, and then sat down on our knees. I took a breath or two, and did feel it was kindof hard to breathe, but hey, I had never tried it before so maybe it *had* to feel that way... But when the instructor asked if I was OK, I said 'no' and we stood up again - head above the water. And he noticed that my tank was completely empty (or turned off, I don't remember). I think I just walked back to the beach and waited for the others to complete the dive...

 

[Martinez]

My first breath from a reg was when I was 13 in my PADI OW, I'll never forget that feeling I was so exited because it was something I wanted to do from my whole-short live. And mos impressive was later that day when they took us to the first OW Dive, I was so happy looking the bubbles going to the surface at 20 ft of water.

 

[Blitz]

I remember thinking: "man, there is going to be a lot of cool stuff to see when I learn how to do this". A buddies dad owned a dive shop so we logged well over 200 dives that summer/fall. And I was right, I saw a lot of cool stuff.

 

[Buc Chick]

I am a bit claustrophobic so I was worried about feeling confined wearing a mask and breathing out of a regulator. So this stopped me from getting certified--I did not want to be out of a lot of $ if I ended up hating it. So decided to do Discover Scuba in the Cayman Islands--figured I'd only be out a few $. That first breath was such a revalation. Rather than feel claustrophobic, I actually felt free! Got certifed soon after that and cuss myself everyday for not doing it sooner.

 

[cudachaser]

43 years ago...It was a Healthways single stage double hose reg...I was hooked on my first breath!

 

[georoc01]

For me it was a discovery dive in Grand Caymans. I had a friend who loved to dive and really wanted me to try it. I remember being very nervous thinking that this isn't normal. I had to push through some really tough nerves to get through those simple skills and then go off on my first dive.

But having done that, going through the open water class was infinitely easier.

 

[paradicio]

My first breath underwater freaked me out. I'm a bit claustrophobic and the combo of the mask (both the confined feeling it gives around the eyes and the nose piece making me feel like I couldn't breathe through my nose), the bubbles coming up by my ears, the reg in my mouth, and the water all around me just scared the heck out of me.

I took a semi private class, so the instructor, my wife, and our friend were all under water waving for me to come down. For the life of me I wanted to, but every time I tried I felt trapped. No matter how much air I took in it just felt like it wasn't enough.

The instructor came up and asked if I was ok. I let him know what was going on and he said it was ok, that's what the confined water dives were for. I asked him if I could swim around a bit, under the water with full gear, just to convince my mind that I wasn't trapped. He said that was a good idea and suggested we all do a few laps around the shallow end of the pool.

Once I started moving I was hooked. Being able to move freely underwater without having to come up for air worked wonders. After that I was ok, but I would still get a little nervous descending (right about when the water made it's way over my nose), but even that has passed now, and I'm so glad it has! SCUBA has to be the single most unique (and fun) experience I've ever encountered.

I remember my first real open water dive in the Catalina dive park. Swimming around a single thought kept making its way through my head: "Oh my god...everyone needs to do this!"