Greetings from cold Iowa

[Angie S]

Hi all!
I just found this board in the past week when someone mentioned it on a different board... what a wealth of information and fun here!

I'm a 30-something currently living in West Des Moines, Iowa. I'm midway through an SSI open water course that my husband and I are taking together. We like to vacation to the Caribbean and have spent many, many hours snorkeling, which is why we decided to take the "next step" and get certified to dive.

I thought the scuba classes were going to be easy and fun, so you can imagine how depressed I was when it came time to clear our masks and for the first time I thought, "I don't know if I can do this." OK, I'm giving myself too much credit. I really thought, "I can't do this." It was more of a challenge than I was prepared for. I've been practicing and it gets a little easier every time, but out of the 5 people in our class, I was the only one who seemed to be having a hard time, so I was really feeling like a loser. I am SO RELIEVED to read some of the posts in the New2scuba threads that describe the same apprehension that I've been experiencing myself. There's hope!

We have a few more weeks to go of the class/pool work, then in mid-March we're planning on doing the checkout dives in Key Largo. Never been there before, so we're looking forward to it!

Thanks for being so welcoming to newcomers here!

 

[chris_b]

Another Iowan on the board!

Where are you taking your SSI course? My wife and I completed an open water course together last year in Fort Lauderdale and just went down again over Christmas and New Years to do some more diving. I'm holding off on Midwest diving until I can afford a drysuit

My wife Kaori had a really tough time with our "first" scuba course that we took here at ISU. The class was huge and the instructor was very old-school: we were required to do things quite a bit more strenuous than mask-clearing! It really was a class right out of the sixties (the gear, too!), with all sorts of skills and trials to make it through.

Kaori dropped out after the first month of class, but we got her into a class with a very patient female instructor in Florida, she had a great time and successful learning experience. In part, I think it was a lot easier for her because of her previous experiences here; after that, anything was easy!

Good luck, you can do it!

Chris

 

[Irishdiver]

Welcome

Stay with it, you're about to discover another world!

ut:

 

[norcaldiver]

Welcome.

I often wonder, as I sit on my balcony, what the weather is like back there. heh

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

Mask clearing is one of the harder skills you will learn. Do yourself a favor and practice it so much it becomes second nature. Its one skill that it will pay to have down pat. Oh, and welcome to the boards!

 

[Angie S]

Thanks everyone -

Chris, we're doing the SSI class here in West Des Moines at ISSDS (Iowa State Skin Diving Schools) -- as you probably know, there aren't too many options here in central Iowa! I don't have much to compare it with, but my gut instinct is that they have a quality program -- they seem very consciencious about safety and we can come in for whatever extra pool time we need for practicing skills. I've already taken them up on it and will probably do so again!

norcaldiver, let me tell you about the $%^&*! weather here. I just shoveled several inches of wet snow off of my driveway, with a nice coating of sleet under it which made for some rather ungraceful moments! The wind is blowing snow around at a pretty good clip, so I got in some unintentional breath-holding practice! lovely.

 

[Rooster1]

welcome to the board Angie S, you can usually get all your answers here

 

[joens]

Glad to have you on board .I have a lot of relatives in Iowa [my dads side of the family] .Around Waterloo for the most part.
Chris Joens

 

[norcaldiver]

Actually, once the ice-out comes, there are a bunch of really nice quarrys all over the midwest. I don't know about the lakes, but some of the quarrys I used to swim in as a kid and fish in high school were crystal clear. I still know of one in the SW corner by Oakland that is prolly a good 40 feet deep and you can see all the way to the bottom.

Of course this made fishing not much of a sport, but I bet a dive there would be great.

 

[DiverBuoy]

Welcome to the scubaboard. Can you elaborate on what specific aspect is causing so much trouble. My wife for example has an almost claustrophobic sensitivity to water over her nose and mouth. Even in the shower if a stream creeps over her face anywhere near her nose or mouth she steps foward and rapidly brushes the water away. Others have difficulty with keeping their lips sealed tightly around the mouthpiece of the regulator thus causing too much air to escape through the mouth and too little air from the nose to displace the water. Others don't tilt their heads back to create the right angle or pull the mask skirt below the nose too far from their face thus filling it right back up again. Finally there are the ones that blow all the air out of their nose in one rapid blast that barely clears any water out at all - it just splashes the water around and creates bubbles and foam. Do you have any or all of these issues?