Last OW Dive Tomorrow-Advice Please

[AlwaysBeachin]

Hello everyone. This is my first post here and may be a little long, so bear with me.

I live on the Gulf Coast and am completing my certification here in the local region. I did the SDI e-learning course with a "one weekend" of pool and OW dives, Friday being the pool, and Sat/Sun the 4 check out dives.

As for the pool, I did ok on most things and I'm not afraid of the water. I've lived here my whole life around water. The 200m swim did wear me out. To make a long story shorter, we spent 4 hours completing all the pool skills. The next day we dove Vortex Spring for 3 OW dives and Sunday Pensacola Beach for the last one. I did not "pass" in my small class on Sunday and felt really embarrassed. I felt rushed and the instructor went kind of fast. I needed do repeat a few things to really "master" them. Most skills were a breeze.

Here were my issues:

Trouble getting off the bottom at Vortex. Overweighted? I'm 5'5 and 175 lbs and had 16 lbs of weight in fresh water. I fought like hell and had to inflate my BC slightly.

CESA - had to inhale because it took me too long to get off the bottom so I ran out of air "simulating" OOA. Instructor said I kicked too rapidly with my ankles and not with my thigh/butt muscles. Basically I wasn't kicking correctly to start ascending?

Descents - I let air out of my BC and others started sinking before me, then when I finally started to sink, I crashed down quickly like a rock. I thought I did a little better with this on dive 4 at the beach. Who cares on descent as I cleared my ears all the way down.

Weight belt removal underwater. Did fine in the pool and struggled at the beach but nevertheless got it. Was soon that "on our knees" crap while doing the skill and the knees thing sucks for balance in a body of water with currant. Others got it, maybe I'm just an idiot

General buoyancy control. Swimming along I tend to start floating to the top or sinking. This, I realize, just takes time and practice and using the BC in short bursts vs long ones to inflate/deflate.

My last screwup was underwater compass nav. I get it, it's easy, just fudged under stress and realized what I did wrong. I got it on the surface. Felt stupid or that one. Don't really need a "redo" on it. Basic compass stuff.

Anyway, is there any advice for me in weights or general control? I was in the process of pulling my folder to finish with another dive shop with a better instructor until one of the "cool" ones that did orientation called and asked me what's wrong as I'd been so excited. Told him I was rushed and "didn't pass" when others did and was told to come back next week. Felt embarrassed and angry. He offered to finish me 1 on 1 this Saturday an has been really nice.

I am going to the Keys in 2 weeks and want this to be fun. I enjoy being underwater but my initial experience had me stressed and pissed. Looking forward to hopefully finishing and being confident this weekend.

 

[tkdgodess]

First, sorry that you felt rushed. I prefer to teach confined water in 5 sessions, but folks really like the compacted schedule, doesn't give you any time to reflect and absorb.

You didnt mention what kind of exposure suit you are wearing. Cesa works best when you start the drill neutral, not planted on the bottom. Improper kicking can be corrected with more practice.

Ask for another pool session to work on buoyancy and finning...

 

[AlwaysBeachin]

I had on a 5mm wetsuit; farmer John with jacket. I'm ok with most of my pool stuff as the main skills I need to practice would be better in OW. I want to practice my ascents/descents and general swimming with the equipment at depth. All the main fundamentals I get. I think I just need more time which I will get this weekend. I practiced finning in my parents' pool this past weekend. I'm good with that now.

 

[TSandM]

It sounds to me as though you may have been badly overweighted. With a 5 mil wetsuit in the pool, with a standard jacket BC and an aluminum tank, I use 8 pounds of lead. You're a little taller and quite a bit bigger than I am, but I still think doubling the weight was probably excessive. When you are overweighted, it's difficult to get off the bottom without air in your BC, and you may need to put enough in that, once you begin to ascend at all, you will rapidly accelerate your ascent. I think the first thing you ought to do on your next try is a real, formal weight check.

A LOT of student divers adopt a "bicycling" sort of kick pattern, where they are flexing and extending at the hip and the knee, as you would when pedalling a bicycle. It's an EXTREMELY inefficient kicking pattern, using lots of muscles to accomplish very little. The long-leg flutter kick IS done from the buttocks and the thigh muscles, with minimal movement at the knee at all, and it's a fairly powerful kick. You may want, if you can, to spend some time in a pool with a kickboard, focusing on keeping your knees straight. (BTW, this is NOT the kick I think people ought to use for diving, but it is the first one generally taught, and it IS more efficient than bicycling.)

For ideas on getting underwater, look up my thread from a couple of days ago on descent control -- there are several tips there.

Wishing you better luck with the redo!

 

[GDI]

First let me say congrats on doing a scuba course recognizing that things aren't perfect and you willingness to continue the training looking to improve your skill set

Hello everyone. This is my first post here and may be a little long, so bear with me.

I live on the Gulf Coast and am completing my certification here in the local region. I did the SDI e-learning course with a "one weekend" of pool and OW dives, Friday being the pool, and Sat/Sun the 4 check out dives.

As for the pool, I did ok on most things and I'm not afraid of the water. I've lived here my whole life around water. The 200m swim did wear me out. To make a long story shorter, we spent 4 hours completing all the pool skills. The next day we dove Vortex Spring for 3 OW dives and Sunday Pensacola Beach for the last one. I did not "pass" in my small class on Sunday and felt really embarrassed. I felt rushed and the instructor went kind of fast. I needed do repeat a few things to really "master" them. Most skills were a breeze.

No student should ever feel rushed when taking a scuba course be that a three day class or a four to five session program


Here were my issues:

Trouble getting off the bottom at Vortex. Overweighted? I'm 5'5 and 175 lbs and had 16 lbs of weight in fresh water. I fought like hell and had to inflate my BC slightly.

Proper weighting and trim are important. You should not feel over-weighted at any time throughout the dive. This approach to get the student to stay under water was wrongly developed so as to allow the student to have some level of control. Proper weighting is not about holding your breath so you float with the water line dissecting the mask at the half way point either. I recommend to take the time and sort your weight out to what it is you need Please read this: Genesis Dive Institute of Florida presents: Scuba Diving Tips

CESA - had to inhale because it took me too long to get off the bottom so I ran out of air "simulating" OOA. Instructor said I kicked too rapidly with my ankles and not with my thigh/butt muscles. Basically I wasn't kicking correctly to start ascending?

You most likely do need to become more proficient in your kicking technique, you might be wasting a lot of energy and not having much thrust. In consideration of the CESA lets face it you are OOA if you need to perform this skill (poor gas management who knows why?) is because you need to get to the surface. The skill is not all that hard if you remember a few basic principles of diving physics one being "Boyles Law"

You do not need to forcefully exhale , just simply open your mouth and throat and gently expire the air from your lungs. Boyle's Law will assist you here by expanding and by this action always keep a sensation of air in your lungs. Raise your free arm, relaxing your chest, look up. Raising your arm, looking up and relaxing the chest helps open the airway (preventing lung over pressurization) and focuses you on where you want to go, the surface. You do not need to dump all the air in your BCD all at once you only need to control the ascent speed, so expel the air from the BCD in bursts but keep the ascent speed to around 60 ft/min or less .. Keep you legs straight and kick using leg power, don't swim up with your arms as this only slows you down and is a wasteful action counter productive to what you want to do. Keep your second stage in your mouth, exhale through it, it helps keep the water out AND since the air that may be residual in your cylinder will become less dense you might get that second breath if needed as you ascend. Basically play "Superman - Man of Steel" and fly to the surface

Descents - I let air out of my BC and others started sinking before me, then when I finally started to sink, I crashed down quickly like a rock. I thought I did a little better with this on dive 4 at the beach. Who cares on descent as I cleared my ears all the way down.

Not knowing the BCD design you were wearing there are a few things here which could be a observation. One: you most likely were over-weighted, Two: Your BCD may have trapped air in the bladder before releasing delaying your descent. Third: It is likely you were not fully dumping the air due to a lacking of BCD manipulation skill, more time getting use to the equipment. Control on Descent is just as important as ascent>Personal injury and environmental damage can result or at the least be negatively impacted. As for your ears and equalization: Genesis Dive Institute of Florida presents: Scuba Diving Tips

Weight belt removal underwater. Did fine in the pool and struggled at the beach but nevertheless got it. Was soon that "on our knees" crap while doing the skill and the knees thing sucks for balance in a body of water with currant. Others got it, maybe I'm just an idiot

Current is a issue but it is everywhere so learn to deal with it, its a fact of diving. Surface or sub-surface the technique should be the same. Where you flat out trimmed on your back or stomach at any time during this skill performance test or were you vertical fighting gravity? You do not need to kneel on this skill, I believe you should remain neutral during its performance. Was the weight belt kept close to your body during the exercise? Moving away from the body offsets your trim and can cause loss of diver position control.

General buoyancy control. Swimming along I tend to start floating to the top or sinking. This, I realize, just takes time and practice and using the BC in short bursts vs long ones to inflate/deflate.

smooth consistent breathing rate, proper weighting and bcd control are lacking

My last screwup was underwater compass nav. I get it, it's easy, just fudged under stress and realized what I did wrong. I got it on the surface. Felt stupid or that one. Don't really need a "redo" on it. Basic compass stuff.

Put to bed and look ahead, compensate for current and use prominent underwater features to help

Anyway, is there any advice for me in weights or general control? I was in the process of pulling my folder to finish with another dive shop with a better instructor until one of the "cool" ones that did orientation called and asked me what's wrong as I'd been so excited. Told him I was rushed and "didn't pass" when others did and was told to come back next week. Felt embarrassed and angry. He offered to finish me 1 on 1 this Saturday an has been really nice.

I am going to the Keys in 2 weeks and want this to be fun. I enjoy being underwater but my initial experience had me stressed and pissed. Looking forward to hopefully finishing and being confident this weekend.

Good Luck hope this helps and practice something on each dive

 

[Jim Lapenta]

You got a course to barely survive underwater. Not one to allow you to truly enjoy yourself and certainly not one to help you be a good dive buddy. I would not allow anyone I cared about to take such a course or dive with someone who was trained in that way.
No wonder my instructor insurance is so high when there are others out there teaching courses like this.

Want some advice? Read this - http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...ering-diving/283566-who-responsible-what.html

and this - http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...ng/287780-how-find-excellent-scuba-class.html

 

[Mike Campbell]

What Jim just said.
Mike

 

[Doomnova]

Sadly it sounds as if you got the same kinda thing I got with my OW class and it took me coming here and lurking for a while reading and learning and then practicing to make up for what I should have gotten in my OW. But one the bright side I have learned far more than I would have in my OW.

The biggest thing I can suggest with your kick cycle during your CESA is full let movement in one direction up then down. Make sure they are full movements. Let the blade of your fin move the water to push you forward not the swimming style bicycle kick.

For decent I would suggest without knowing the exact BC of tipping to one side so that the exhaust valve is the highest point. Water is pushing on the bladder from the bottom and the air wants to get out by having that at the highest point you'll force all the air to the point you want and thus effectively managing the air bubble in your BCD (I dive in a drysuit here and do the same thing for my drysuit when I get into the water to get he excess air out).

I can't speak at all on the weight belt removal or replace I never had issues with mine save for the fact I do not use them anymore because I don't have the waist to hold them up...

For your concern with moving up and down in the water column that is just a normal part of breathing. There are techniques that you learn as time goes on to minimize the movement in the column by breathing around you neutral buoyancy point. Extreme Scuba Makeover ESM) Chapter 3 Breathing 101 - YouTube at 7:27 starts into the whole idea since i seen this video I've incorporated the idea into my breathing cycle and I have noticed the vertical movement is a lot less (except when I want to chance position talked about a bit later). But this is also something that doesn't need to be done during OW but is a useful skill to develop as you go along for getting up close and personal with the local flora and fauna. As for adding air to your BCD. The BCD is not an elevator it is a course control device for one buoyancy once you have attained neutral buoyancy you then use your lungs to make minor adjustments up and down just by changing the amount of air you keep in your lungs during your breathing cycle can lead to you being 3-5ft higher/lower than you were before to go over/under something or to look at something a bit lower/higher above you without touching your BCD (this also saved on air that you have use to add to your BCD thus adding time to your dives). All these take a bit of practise to learn. Also I will under score this one. There is a major difference between holding ones breath and pausing ones breath. A breath hold is just like it sounds forcefully holding your breath and closing the glottis this stops air from getting out (bad) a pause conversely is just relaxing the muscles in your diaphragm. This one is not even talked about and I didn't know about it till I came here. By using a pause in your breathing cycle for a second you can tell where the neutral buoyancy point is in your breathing cycle if you have full lungs and your going down/just neutral put a bit of air in your BCD. If the reverse is true let a bit out. The reason why i'm pushing this part more than anything is diving is buoyancy. Once you get the big B as I call it (buoyancy) under control diving become very fun and enjoyable but its something that takes time and effort.

As for general improvements. I will underscore this. DO NOT TRY TO IMPROVE EVERYTHING AT ONCE! I know new divers here and some who have about as many dives as I do (about 70) they have worked on everything or are trying too. This simply overload you and you will likely not retain much of anything. Pick 3 thing to improve on during the dive. One that you can do on decent, one during the middle of the dive while your one the bottom and finally one on ascent/safety stop. So for example referring to my log book.

Dive #9 "I choose to control my decent to become neutrally buoyant at about 5ft from the bottom (improvement 1 I usually crashed into the bottom or was too far above it). during my time on the bottom I would work on breath control to view things closer (like getting up close to a crack in a rock below me or looking at a blade of kelp and seeing the inverts crawling on it). At safety stop was practice mask removal and replacement skill as well as reg recovery."

Does this mean every time I choose a skill that I "mastered" it or greatly improved on it not always but there was a marked increase in my abilities as I did this process to the point now were when I'm doing my drills i'm trying to avoid moving more than a foot or two during my safety stop during safety stops with no bottom(otherwise I'm looking for critters). The biggest thing also when diving is remain calm. Getting flustered and frustrated and/or rushed leads to mistakes. mistakes before a dive or during a dive is what can snowball in to much bigger issues. So i hope your dive on sat goes well and good luck in the keys I hope you have fun.

Also your instructor had better be happy he/she is not here or I would ream them out after what I went through mine and the shop owner for my OW both got a new one torn in them for their "OW class". /end rant

 

[Gindack]

I am an the same boat with my CESA skill, I have my last OW dive this Sunday as well and hope I can get it down pat.

I only have an inkling on what I am doing but it sounds like you were waaay overweighted. I am 5'11 450 lbs fat man wearing a 3mm shorty in freshwater and had 18lbs total on and I was weighted about right.

 

[RJP]

You got a course to barely survive underwater. Not one to allow you to truly enjoy yourself and certainly not one to help you be a good dive buddy. I would not allow anyone I cared about to take such a course or dive with someone who was trained in that way.
No wonder my instructor insurance is so high when there are others out there teaching courses like this.

Want some advice? Read this - http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...ering-diving/283566-who-responsible-what.html

and this - http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...ng/287780-how-find-excellent-scuba-class.html

Very helpful advice... just not for the OP in this thread.