I have.
My OW experience was scary. Me and another student needed to haul our old, bloated, out of shape instructor out of La Jolla cove after dive 3 of 5. So not only did my Thursday and Friday classroom experiences suck (which they did), my Saturday Ocean check out dives sucked.
We pulled moby out of the water, and two weeks later my card showed up.
A week later, I'm taking my wife on a dive for her birthday (the cert was to surprise her.. she was already certified years earlier, but hasn't made a dive in probably 5 years...) in the Catalina dive park. I'm kinda nervous, as its my first dive without a chaperone.
There are classes on the buoys, so we kick over to an un-occupied corner of the park. We look at each other, everything is OK? Its all OK!
On that first dive, in rental gear, I reach up to vent my BC and the inflator pulls out of the corrugated hose. Just pulls out. There is a jacuzzi of water exiting my fully inflated jacket BC. So there a bubbles all around me, noise, and I'm sinking.
Inflator in my hand, Kenny is sinking like a rock. Doubtless horribly overwighted. Wife on the surface, sees me dropping...
I kick like a mofo, but I'm pretty freaked out. I have no idea whats going on, except I'm in strange gear, first time out by myself, and I'm not floating anymore. My reg is in my mouth, but I'm so over breathing it its pretty useless.
I dump the belt. Instantly its much easier to tread water. I flop onto my back, head to the sky, and catch my breath. We kick back to the shore and climb out.
Welcome to Scuba, Ken...
We didn't dive again for another couple of months. In fact, the first three years I think we only did about 40 dives total.
Then I met someone at the ScubaShow that changed the way I dive. Gave me confidence in the water again, and showed me how to dive so I don't kill myself. I did another 18 dives with him and that SSI shop and it put me on the right path. SSI AOW taught slowly and competently. ANDI EAN, real navigation, etc. Did my first boat dives, etc. It changed everything for me, this shop.
Then I found SB....
Moved to a Steel tank
Moved into Drysuits
Purchased and assembled a BP/W
Read about and took DIR/F
Now my gear never even gets dry, doing 250+ a year...
OY.
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Ken