purplesunfish
New
I think that if you have the time, you should do a complete review of all your old skills. It will help your confidence a lot. I certified in '99 and had a glorious 3 months of solid diving on a reef research project in Belize in 2000.
After that, nothing. Nada.
My husband recently got certified a month ago and, buoyed by his enthusiasm, we went on a well organized dive event this weekend. Thought about the refresher but the LDS was asking for quite a bit of money for it and we thought we could probably do without it. We did do two "check each other out" dives the weekend beforehand and had fun in a relatively sheltered scuba park but the first time in after 3 years was pretty traumatic.
So, fast forward to the actual weekend we were looking forward to:
First dive, shallow wreck, I freaked because my mask slipped and I clung to the smokestack of the Connie, hyperventilating for a good 10 minutes and had to talk myself into going back down again. Second dive I completely wimped out of because the currents scared me. Third dive went pretty good (because it was in another sheltered scuba park) until I heard a funny whining noise (it was a boat but I thought of worse things).
In retrospect, I am glad that we did do those extra "check out" dive the weekend before because I could assess my husband's skills and determine that he was a competent enough buddy to pull me out of anything. OTOH, I think perhaps I may have benefitted from a refresher course too. I keep thinking perhaps if I had the reassurance from a "pro" and not a newly certified newbie that I was doing fine, perhaps my confidence would have been higher up there (This past weekend my confidence level hovered about 2 inches off the ground).
Just my .2 psi. Hope you have fun on your trip.
PSF
After that, nothing. Nada.
My husband recently got certified a month ago and, buoyed by his enthusiasm, we went on a well organized dive event this weekend. Thought about the refresher but the LDS was asking for quite a bit of money for it and we thought we could probably do without it. We did do two "check each other out" dives the weekend beforehand and had fun in a relatively sheltered scuba park but the first time in after 3 years was pretty traumatic.
So, fast forward to the actual weekend we were looking forward to:
First dive, shallow wreck, I freaked because my mask slipped and I clung to the smokestack of the Connie, hyperventilating for a good 10 minutes and had to talk myself into going back down again. Second dive I completely wimped out of because the currents scared me. Third dive went pretty good (because it was in another sheltered scuba park) until I heard a funny whining noise (it was a boat but I thought of worse things).
In retrospect, I am glad that we did do those extra "check out" dive the weekend before because I could assess my husband's skills and determine that he was a competent enough buddy to pull me out of anything. OTOH, I think perhaps I may have benefitted from a refresher course too. I keep thinking perhaps if I had the reassurance from a "pro" and not a newly certified newbie that I was doing fine, perhaps my confidence would have been higher up there (This past weekend my confidence level hovered about 2 inches off the ground).
Just my .2 psi. Hope you have fun on your trip.
PSF
