PTAaron
Registered
I got home a little while ago from doing my 4 open water dives for my PADI open water cert... and I had an awesome time!
Dives were done at Portage Quarry in Ohio - and let me just say that quarry water in early May is NOT warm!! LOL!! I think the coldest my computer recorded was 45 degrees at 50 feet, and at 20 feet it was right around 50 degrees. Visibility was fair - 10-15 feet. I was really surprised at how comfortable I felt in water that cold though - only time it bothered my was when it got into my mask.
Our instructor told us that if we could dive comfortably in the conditions we did today, we could pretty much dive anywhere - so that was comforting!
Anyway - the experience went really well. A couple of surprising things happened though:
1) At about 30 feet down on the very first dive my regulator started leaking water! Big surprise that first breath when I got a mouthful of water with the air!! After coughing that out, I naturally looked up and my first thought was "Holy crap, I have to get to the surface!!" ... but I remembered a lot of the threads I have been reading on here (been addicted to the site since I found it) and stopped and assessed the situation. It wasn't a LOT of water, and I was still getting air - so I wasn't going to drown. Once I calmed down I continued swimming along for a short time - but my wife was having trouble equalizing her ears and needed to go up. I used that opportunity to change to over to my octopus, which worked fine and DIDN'T leak!
For my second dive I just used the octo, and switched out for a new regulator set for the second day.
2) I had a surprise visit to the surface! Swimming along comfortably at 30 feet on dive #2, and - according to the DM that was with me - maintaining good buoyancy control (for a new diver) I suddenly noticed that my wife and the DM appeared to be decending! I checked my computer and I was at 20 feet... I tried dumping air, but the BC was empty. I shifted around a bit to make sure there were no air bubbles to get them to the top - still nothing. 30 seconds later I was on the surface! The DM (we had 2... one stayed down with my wife, the other surfaced to make sure I was OK) asked what was wrong - I just said I was as confused as him as to why I was there! We later determined that although I was perfectly neutral with my weights with a FULL tank, I was underweighted with a 2/3 empty tank!
I managed to kick my way back down, and once I got deeper I became neutral again and finished the dive.
Those were my 2 big eye openers... I added some weight for the second day of dives, and had a better maintained regulator (a Genesis GS-2000 that I is now BY FAR the best rental reg I've used) - and I was actually able to relax and enjoy the experience. I even took some time to "drive" a motorcycle at the bottom of the quarry. I did notice one thing - the more relaxed I got while diving the more I dropped. I don't know if that is a function of breathing better? I found myself popping more air into the BC to maintain as time went on - even at the same depth.
One funny thing happened:
At one point I found myself at a point where kicking didn't seem to propel me forward, and I was getting kind of frustrated. At that moment I thought about the eDiver game - and when my diver on there has issues it is usually due to bad trim... so I flattened myself back out - and guess what? I moved forward just fine! So video games really are useful!!
Okay... kind of a long post - but I just wanted to share.
Thanks to everyone on this board for the fantastic information you have posted all over the board. Obsessively reading the board several times a day has taught me so much!
Dives were done at Portage Quarry in Ohio - and let me just say that quarry water in early May is NOT warm!! LOL!! I think the coldest my computer recorded was 45 degrees at 50 feet, and at 20 feet it was right around 50 degrees. Visibility was fair - 10-15 feet. I was really surprised at how comfortable I felt in water that cold though - only time it bothered my was when it got into my mask.
Our instructor told us that if we could dive comfortably in the conditions we did today, we could pretty much dive anywhere - so that was comforting!
Anyway - the experience went really well. A couple of surprising things happened though:
1) At about 30 feet down on the very first dive my regulator started leaking water! Big surprise that first breath when I got a mouthful of water with the air!! After coughing that out, I naturally looked up and my first thought was "Holy crap, I have to get to the surface!!" ... but I remembered a lot of the threads I have been reading on here (been addicted to the site since I found it) and stopped and assessed the situation. It wasn't a LOT of water, and I was still getting air - so I wasn't going to drown. Once I calmed down I continued swimming along for a short time - but my wife was having trouble equalizing her ears and needed to go up. I used that opportunity to change to over to my octopus, which worked fine and DIDN'T leak!
For my second dive I just used the octo, and switched out for a new regulator set for the second day.
2) I had a surprise visit to the surface! Swimming along comfortably at 30 feet on dive #2, and - according to the DM that was with me - maintaining good buoyancy control (for a new diver) I suddenly noticed that my wife and the DM appeared to be decending! I checked my computer and I was at 20 feet... I tried dumping air, but the BC was empty. I shifted around a bit to make sure there were no air bubbles to get them to the top - still nothing. 30 seconds later I was on the surface! The DM (we had 2... one stayed down with my wife, the other surfaced to make sure I was OK) asked what was wrong - I just said I was as confused as him as to why I was there! We later determined that although I was perfectly neutral with my weights with a FULL tank, I was underweighted with a 2/3 empty tank!
I managed to kick my way back down, and once I got deeper I became neutral again and finished the dive.
Those were my 2 big eye openers... I added some weight for the second day of dives, and had a better maintained regulator (a Genesis GS-2000 that I is now BY FAR the best rental reg I've used) - and I was actually able to relax and enjoy the experience. I even took some time to "drive" a motorcycle at the bottom of the quarry. I did notice one thing - the more relaxed I got while diving the more I dropped. I don't know if that is a function of breathing better? I found myself popping more air into the BC to maintain as time went on - even at the same depth.
One funny thing happened:
At one point I found myself at a point where kicking didn't seem to propel me forward, and I was getting kind of frustrated. At that moment I thought about the eDiver game - and when my diver on there has issues it is usually due to bad trim... so I flattened myself back out - and guess what? I moved forward just fine! So video games really are useful!!
Okay... kind of a long post - but I just wanted to share.
Thanks to everyone on this board for the fantastic information you have posted all over the board. Obsessively reading the board several times a day has taught me so much!
