neal779
Registered
Just wanted to greet everyone and introduce myself to the board...
My name's Neal, and I'm a brand new SCUBA diver! I live in MD (right outside of Washington, DC). For years now, I have been wanting to learn to dive, but never took any action to actually make it happen... I expressed my interest in pursuing diving to a co-worker, who turned out to have her OW certification, and she inspired and motivated me to finally make it happen.
I had a planned vacation to Hawaii, and made a reservation with a dive shop in Oahu to complete a 3-day PADI Open Water course.
I did all my homework, completed all the quizzes and tests, and successfully completed all the confined dives. The next day, we got on the boat and headed to our dive spot for Open Water dives 1 & 2. I got suited up, backrolled off the boat and started to descent... attempting to equalize every couple of feet. I tried and tried, but was unsuccessful... I believe the culprit was some inner congestion that I wasn't aware of.
I was bummed... but was determined to try again the next day. Took a decongestant when I woke up, and was able to complete my first 2 amazing open water dives.
Unfortunately, I left the next morning, so I left Hawaii with a Scuba Diver certification rather than the OW cert. But, I'm looking forwarding to going with a local dive shop next weekend to complete my last 2 dives.
Thank you all for this wonderful board!
Neal
My name's Neal, and I'm a brand new SCUBA diver! I live in MD (right outside of Washington, DC). For years now, I have been wanting to learn to dive, but never took any action to actually make it happen... I expressed my interest in pursuing diving to a co-worker, who turned out to have her OW certification, and she inspired and motivated me to finally make it happen.
I had a planned vacation to Hawaii, and made a reservation with a dive shop in Oahu to complete a 3-day PADI Open Water course.
I did all my homework, completed all the quizzes and tests, and successfully completed all the confined dives. The next day, we got on the boat and headed to our dive spot for Open Water dives 1 & 2. I got suited up, backrolled off the boat and started to descent... attempting to equalize every couple of feet. I tried and tried, but was unsuccessful... I believe the culprit was some inner congestion that I wasn't aware of.
I was bummed... but was determined to try again the next day. Took a decongestant when I woke up, and was able to complete my first 2 amazing open water dives.
Unfortunately, I left the next morning, so I left Hawaii with a Scuba Diver certification rather than the OW cert. But, I'm looking forwarding to going with a local dive shop next weekend to complete my last 2 dives.
Thank you all for this wonderful board!
Neal
feature. Hope you enjoy your time here. Click my Username to PM me if I can help? Helpful Hint: I have 
