Z06Boricua
Registered
Hey guys,
I recently had my first two OW dives this past Saturday, and I must say that while it was generally fun overall, there were some not so fun aspects of it. My wife and I are getting certified together in Kuwait and our OW dives are in the Persian Gulf. We went out on the boat and I brought my newly purchased, lightly used Halcyon BP/W and Atomic reg with 7' hose along with the wife's brand new Oceanic reg setup. There was a problem with the Oceanic Hera we bought her and are waiting on a replacement from ST.
When we got on the boat, out instructor wanted to see everything we had, and decided that he did not want me using my BP/W as it would "mess up my buoyancy control", and he didn't feel comfortable with me using my Atomic reg/octo because of the long hose (OOA exercises). While I wasn't that comfortable using ill-maintained rental gear in OW, I was OK with it because it was just a quick check-out dive. What bugged me more than anything was that he didn't want my wife using her new Oceanic reg because "normally, shops don't connect your octo, BC inflator, and console to your 1st stage" and he wanted to "check everything out first". I explained to him that ST does connect everything for you as a free service, and that they're an authorized service center, but he didn't want to hear it. No problem, she dove with rental gear as well.
During our first dive, my wife was fighting her BCD as it was not fitting her well at all, and her weight belt was off center, so she was constantly fighting to keep from listing to the right underwater. The current was pretty strong and visibility was probably around 2-4ft. I ended up with lots of equalization issues, and it took me forever to reach the bottom. No matter what, I would feel tons of ear squeeze at the slightest descent, no more than a foot or two. The nose pinch wasn't really working for me, so I tried to swallow and all was well. I'd wait a minute, descend another foot or so, and again instant squeeze. Despite these issues, we both felt extremely comfortable in the water with no claustrophobia issues, anxiety, or panic at all.
During the SI, we talked about the issues we had, and the instructor basically told me that I was probably descending too fast, which I don't think I was. My wife told him about the weight belt and BCD issues, so we tried a smaller size, and that was taken care of. The second dive went a bit better, viz cleared up a bit to around 8-10ft, and we actually saw some coral and fish, which excited the wife a lot.
The main issue we ran into on the second dive was surfacing at the end. We were probably a good 200-300ft (my best guesstimate) from the boat, and the current was working against us. We did a quick towing exercise, and the instructor was between us and the boat. He told us to surface swim on our backs, arms crossed in front of us. No problem! We started swimming...and swimming...and swimming some more. We'd look back, and he's almost at the boat, but the boat didn't seem to be getting any closer. So we swam some more...and then some more. We look back again, boat's still in the same spot. Hmm, this can't be good. No matter how hard we swam, we were not getting closer to the boat. I started getting a bit pissed off that the instructor had left us, as by now he was on the boat with his gear removed, yelling at us to swim harder. My wife was lagging behind me, and was becoming increasingly angry, using words that she only uses when she's really mad. 
I was worried that she would begin panicking at any moment, so I swam to her in an attempt to calm her down. She told me that she wasn't panicking, she was just really angry at him for leaving us behind. I kept her calm, and she told me that she was done with diving. She didn't want to do it anymore. I had lost my buddy. 
Finally, I told her to just stop and wait for the boat to come get us, which after about 30-40min of swimming, they finally came over to us. At this point I was livid, and when we got on the boat, I lit into the instructor, asking him what the hell was he thinking, etc. His response was that he wanted us to learn how to swim on the surface, and that he was instructing us from the boat because we were in no immediate danger. While I did agree with him (as we were in constant visual contact the whole time), I explained to him that it's not a very good idea to leave two brand new students behind like he did, knowing that we're not in the best shape like him, and knowing that we were fighting a current the whole way. I told him that a good instructor would stay close by, but far enough to let the student learn on his own without holding his hand, knowing that with a new student, panic could ensue at any time. I then told him that he had failed as an instructor, because he now had a student (my wife) who had no desire to continue her training. It was a quiet boat ride back to the docks, and when we got to our respective cars, I told him again that he was wrong for leaving us alone out in the open water. He apologized and stated that he simply wanted us to learn how to swim back to the boat against current, because he would not always be there to help us in the future. Afterwards, I was talking to my wife and she decided that she will in fact continue with the certification, but she doesn't know if she wants to continue learning from him. Up until Saturday, he had been a great instructor.
Please discuss.
Jose
I recently had my first two OW dives this past Saturday, and I must say that while it was generally fun overall, there were some not so fun aspects of it. My wife and I are getting certified together in Kuwait and our OW dives are in the Persian Gulf. We went out on the boat and I brought my newly purchased, lightly used Halcyon BP/W and Atomic reg with 7' hose along with the wife's brand new Oceanic reg setup. There was a problem with the Oceanic Hera we bought her and are waiting on a replacement from ST.
When we got on the boat, out instructor wanted to see everything we had, and decided that he did not want me using my BP/W as it would "mess up my buoyancy control", and he didn't feel comfortable with me using my Atomic reg/octo because of the long hose (OOA exercises). While I wasn't that comfortable using ill-maintained rental gear in OW, I was OK with it because it was just a quick check-out dive. What bugged me more than anything was that he didn't want my wife using her new Oceanic reg because "normally, shops don't connect your octo, BC inflator, and console to your 1st stage" and he wanted to "check everything out first". I explained to him that ST does connect everything for you as a free service, and that they're an authorized service center, but he didn't want to hear it. No problem, she dove with rental gear as well.
During our first dive, my wife was fighting her BCD as it was not fitting her well at all, and her weight belt was off center, so she was constantly fighting to keep from listing to the right underwater. The current was pretty strong and visibility was probably around 2-4ft. I ended up with lots of equalization issues, and it took me forever to reach the bottom. No matter what, I would feel tons of ear squeeze at the slightest descent, no more than a foot or two. The nose pinch wasn't really working for me, so I tried to swallow and all was well. I'd wait a minute, descend another foot or so, and again instant squeeze. Despite these issues, we both felt extremely comfortable in the water with no claustrophobia issues, anxiety, or panic at all.
During the SI, we talked about the issues we had, and the instructor basically told me that I was probably descending too fast, which I don't think I was. My wife told him about the weight belt and BCD issues, so we tried a smaller size, and that was taken care of. The second dive went a bit better, viz cleared up a bit to around 8-10ft, and we actually saw some coral and fish, which excited the wife a lot.
The main issue we ran into on the second dive was surfacing at the end. We were probably a good 200-300ft (my best guesstimate) from the boat, and the current was working against us. We did a quick towing exercise, and the instructor was between us and the boat. He told us to surface swim on our backs, arms crossed in front of us. No problem! We started swimming...and swimming...and swimming some more. We'd look back, and he's almost at the boat, but the boat didn't seem to be getting any closer. So we swam some more...and then some more. We look back again, boat's still in the same spot. Hmm, this can't be good. No matter how hard we swam, we were not getting closer to the boat. I started getting a bit pissed off that the instructor had left us, as by now he was on the boat with his gear removed, yelling at us to swim harder. My wife was lagging behind me, and was becoming increasingly angry, using words that she only uses when she's really mad. I was worried that she would begin panicking at any moment, so I swam to her in an attempt to calm her down. She told me that she wasn't panicking, she was just really angry at him for leaving us behind. I kept her calm, and she told me that she was done with diving. She didn't want to do it anymore. I had lost my buddy. Finally, I told her to just stop and wait for the boat to come get us, which after about 30-40min of swimming, they finally came over to us. At this point I was livid, and when we got on the boat, I lit into the instructor, asking him what the hell was he thinking, etc. His response was that he wanted us to learn how to swim on the surface, and that he was instructing us from the boat because we were in no immediate danger. While I did agree with him (as we were in constant visual contact the whole time), I explained to him that it's not a very good idea to leave two brand new students behind like he did, knowing that we're not in the best shape like him, and knowing that we were fighting a current the whole way. I told him that a good instructor would stay close by, but far enough to let the student learn on his own without holding his hand, knowing that with a new student, panic could ensue at any time. I then told him that he had failed as an instructor, because he now had a student (my wife) who had no desire to continue her training. It was a quiet boat ride back to the docks, and when we got to our respective cars, I told him again that he was wrong for leaving us alone out in the open water. He apologized and stated that he simply wanted us to learn how to swim back to the boat against current, because he would not always be there to help us in the future. Afterwards, I was talking to my wife and she decided that she will in fact continue with the certification, but she doesn't know if she wants to continue learning from him. Up until Saturday, he had been a great instructor.
Please discuss.
Jose
