You are definitely not the only person to struggle! I did my OW over 2 weekends in a 7mm wetsuit, and of the 10 students who showed up the first day, only 5 got certified on the last. I did a separate drysuit course a little over a year and 100 dives later. I still mostly prefer wetsuits for shore dives, in part because the extra 6 lbs. of lead I need even compared to that thick wetsuit makes the walk on dry land so much more effortful. I also rarely do more than one shore dive per day, and I avoid rocky beaches. I've done over 350 dives, about half of them in a drysuit, over 100 from shore, and yet I'm not at all confident I could pass the 3-day course you attempted without dropping from exhaustion.
You've gotten a lot of good advice in this thread. The first thing you should do is stop beating yourself up. The next thing is to figure out how to break this challenge down into more manageable pieces:
- You might have been overweighted, even for your drysuit. You will definitely need less weight in a wetsuit. It may be possible to do some short dives in a wetsuit even where you live, or you could go someplace warmer to finish the course.
- The weight is less bothersome diving from a boat. Again, you may be able to make arrangements locally, or you could go someplace warm.
- The weight is more manageable if you're only doing one dive per day, and not diving 3 days in a row. You could look into private lessons locally to go at your own pace, or again, you could travel.
- You can improve your physical strength, and you probably will over many dives just by taking it slow. But if travel or a modified training environment isn't in the cards for you in the near future, you could hit the gym for a few months before trying again. I know a woman tech diver about your size who hoists her tiny self up and through the surf with a drysuit and a pair of 100 cubic foot steel tanks like she's going for a stroll in the park. She works out like a fiend and tells her adoring mentees that we girls can do everything the boys can do; we just have to work harder.
- To some extent, you do get used to the restrictive hippo feeling of a drysuit. To some extent, it's about proper fit, which you may not have had. Again, diving wet at least for now while you gain proficiency and physical strength may help. If you really want to dive dry in Iceland, you may want to bite the bullet and buy a drysuit, perhaps one that's custom-made for you.
You've gotten a lot of good advice in this thread. The first thing you should do is stop beating yourself up. The next thing is to figure out how to break this challenge down into more manageable pieces:
- You might have been overweighted, even for your drysuit. You will definitely need less weight in a wetsuit. It may be possible to do some short dives in a wetsuit even where you live, or you could go someplace warmer to finish the course.
- The weight is less bothersome diving from a boat. Again, you may be able to make arrangements locally, or you could go someplace warm.
- The weight is more manageable if you're only doing one dive per day, and not diving 3 days in a row. You could look into private lessons locally to go at your own pace, or again, you could travel.
- You can improve your physical strength, and you probably will over many dives just by taking it slow. But if travel or a modified training environment isn't in the cards for you in the near future, you could hit the gym for a few months before trying again. I know a woman tech diver about your size who hoists her tiny self up and through the surf with a drysuit and a pair of 100 cubic foot steel tanks like she's going for a stroll in the park. She works out like a fiend and tells her adoring mentees that we girls can do everything the boys can do; we just have to work harder.
- To some extent, you do get used to the restrictive hippo feeling of a drysuit. To some extent, it's about proper fit, which you may not have had. Again, diving wet at least for now while you gain proficiency and physical strength may help. If you really want to dive dry in Iceland, you may want to bite the bullet and buy a drysuit, perhaps one that's custom-made for you.
