I passed OW :)

[Skittl1321]

OW checkouts went WAY better than pool work (previous post about the disaster that was my first pool session; when I went back I did better, but still not great), though it was weird- in the pool I had lots of issues with regulator skills (anything that removed it from my mouth), and no issues at all with mask skills. In OW, I had no issues with regulator skills and a lot of anxiety (but no real issues once I'd do it) with mask skills. I think it was because I couldn't get myself into the kneeling position and was really anxious I would flip over while my mask was off (thus getting water up my nose...which I know shouldn't be an issue, but I swim weird where I cover my nose with my lip, so I've never had to deal with water in my nose while swimming, and I can't do that if the regulator is in my mouth, so I feel really vulnerable). I think technically we were supposed to be kneeling on the platform to do the skills, but no matter what I did, I couldn't keep myself down and hovered (I flipped over during the oral inflate for the fin tip... two breaths in and I turned sideways and went fins over head... would that mean my BCD was slightly crooked on the tank and I was off balance?)

So now I'm not sure about my weights, I'm a short, slightly overweight (but not close to obese) girl, I was wearing a 7 mm wetsuit (designed for someone like 4-6" taller than me, so I had a lot of extra fabric around my ankles, which I think accounts for the buoyancy of my feet!) in freshwater. Day 1 I wore 16 lbs of weight and the weight check they did said I was fine, but I couldn't get myself to stay on the platform so I went up to 18 today. Still couldn't (and couldn't free descend without using my arms to push myself down.) I guess it is kind of moot since saltwater in a 3 mm shorty when we go on vacation will be so differently, but I guess I thought weights were supposed to help keep you from floating off. I mean, I wasn't really rising to the surface, but I also wasn't staying down.

After we were certified and got to do our "fun" (the vis was 3-5 feet, so fun is used loosely) my buddy and I swam around in a circle for awhile (no compass, the instructors later told us they watched our bubbles go in a literal circle, we had no idea where we were going and were just trying to practice no kicking the ground...) and did a 3 minute safety stop. We managed to stay within 2 feet of the stop depth, which I thought was pretty good for a first time with no line.

I imagine this diving is going to be pretty fun when there is something to see, but I have to say, 30 minutes in the mud with like 5 fish to keep us company was a LONG dive...

We don't go on vacation until December, so I think we'll try to make 2-3 trips to the quarry before it gets to cold so my husband and I can continue to run through skills. But man, a 2 hour drive up there and back is a lot for such a crappy dive...

 

[kelemvor]

Congratulations!

 

[XS-NRG]

Welcome to diving....you'll never stop now! Don't be worried about diving in the mud. If you train in the worst of the worst type of conditions it makes diving somewhere tropical a breeze and you really appreciate everything alot more!

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Stay active- even in the pool if no alternatives. Welcome to our world!
DivemasterDennis

 

[Skittl1321]

Stay active- even in the pool if no alternatives. Welcome to our world!
DivemasterDennis

Pool isn't really an option either The shop only has the pool once a month.

But we definitely plan to go up to the quarry at least once a month until it freezes. (Not ready for ice diving yet!)

 

[mizzie]

Yea, congrats! I do my OW dives this weekend and I'm so excited.

 

[Skittl1321]

Yea, congrats! I do my OW dives this weekend and I'm so excited.

Good luck!

 

[kelemvor]

Pool isn't really an option either The shop only has the pool once a month.

But we definitely plan to go up to the quarry at least once a month until it freezes. (Not ready for ice diving yet!)

That means you need to come down and dive with us in Florida!

 

[kimbalabala]

Congratulations! We did our cert dives in the same sort of conditions - in March with 41 degree water! You'll be SO happy to hit water with good visibility and lots of marine life that you can SEE! You've just entered a really cool world!!

 

[TSandM]

It's hard to kneel if you are properly weighted. The only way a diver is really stable on his knees is if he is REALLY negative, and a properly weighted single tank diver in an average tank will only be about five pounds negative in shallow water, at the beginning of a dive. This is one of the reasons we don't TEACH students on their knees -- they end up spending as much mental effort on staying there as they do on the skills themselves!

Glad it all went well for you. Diving in very poor viz is challenging. Is the viz where you got certified always that bad, or was it particularly bad because of the silt being stirred up by the classes? There may be other areas of the site that are better. That's certainly true with our training sites. One simply doesn't ever want to dive for fun above 40 feet on a weekend . . .