Looking for help for person scared by Discover Scuba experience

[KatieMac]

I want to thank everyone for their input. I have my plan which involves continuing to look for opportunities to dive along with local Funday-Sunday dives and waiting to see if anything changes without me bringing it up. The private DSD suggestion is still my favorite response I think probably because I don't have many diving friends...yet, but the real issue is not me but someone I care deeply for and my inability to do anything proactive to fix a problem. Some problems are just not solvable in that manner.
Again, thanks to everybody for your responses!

I want to add one suggestion for consideration. Try private but in a very different location - caribbean, lots of coral, lots of nice fish. Might be more her speed

 

[boulderjohn]

I've already brought that up. We're in North Central Colorado. I did my 4 cert dives in the Heber City Crater beginning of April. We'll see what she does but yeah I would want her to try another DSD before signing up for OW and I would prefer she did the entire Cert locally. She saw my pictures from the Crater and the closed in nature of it appeared to turn her off. All said, I'll be happy if I know she is happy diving or not.

When I worked in local dive shops in Boulder, we did a ton of pool-only DSDs, and I thought they were great experiences for the divers. In fact, it was my observation that the students doing the pool-only DSDs looked like better divers than students completing the pool portion of the OW class that led me to rethink completely how we teach diving. (And, yes, major changes have been made since then.)

In the Boulder area, there are two shops that would happily do a discover scuba class for you. One of them, Weavers, is in something of a predicament that would work in your favor. The Boulder Recreation Centers are having serious staffing issues, and they are actually closing on weekends. Weavers still uses them for training, so on their training days they have to rent the entire darn pool, not just the few lanes they normally need. That means they will be thrilled to add a private discover scuba student, and you would have oodles of room.

The regulators were all new Scubapro sets and they seemed to be working fine. Hers did work she just had a lot of trouble getting her head around trusting it. Part of my job I can end up wearing and using SCBA multiple times per week depending on who spilled what and where, so I'm used to having to depend on artificial life support. Not everyone is.

In my experience, beginning students and especially DSD students often feel at first that the regulator is not working properly because they are not breathing properly. They tend to be a little fearful and breathe in quick, shallow breaths. It is as if they have an invisible barrier in the throat that the air bounces off. Your first step in such a class is to get the student to relax and breathe ever so slowly and calmly.

 

[Bubble99]

I am backing up KatieMac "try caribbean, lots of coral, lots of nice fish"
I have looked up that crater you dive in and whilst I would find that interesting now I would have never started there or continued diving: too dark, too closed up, a bit spookey.

Try warm water (most women get colder more easily so prefer warm water), somewhere where she would like to swim maybe, like sand at 5 m to have turquioise water and a beautiful reef at the side where there are many inoffensive colorful fish to look at so it makes sense to actually stay longer under water to be able to watch them.
And yes, one to one is so much better it gives confidence that someone would 100% be there in case of trouble, even if then not needed and no trouble happens.

 

[NorCalDM]

My first thought is if the wife wants to do it she will seek out the solution not the husband. She should be asking the questions. The question to her is why do you want to get certified and if the answers is because my husband wants me to or some version of this it won't or shouldn't happen. To be safe and enjoyable you need to dive for yourself not for someone else.

 

[AngusHDay]

As an update to all of you, and I'm counting it as good, she signed up for a private DSD and I feel that she will have an excellent chance at deciding now whether diving will be her thing. I thank all of you for your fine advice. Also, I will at least be diving Flaming Gorge this year and I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Akimbo]

Equipment burden and overall comfort in the water seems like an issue. Have you done very much snorkeling and freediving? If not, it is a good way to build confidence and motivate people to want to spend more time on the bottom. Think baby steps and letting her motivation drive the move toward Scuba.

 

[hammet]

Why do people always want to get their spouses/gfs into the hobbies they like?

I enjoy going on vacation, getting up early to dive, while the wife and kid enjoy sleeping late. I look forward to ending the dive and getting back to them in time for brunch.

 

[brsnow]

Why do people always want to get their spouses/gfs into the hobbies they like?

I enjoy going on vacation, getting up early to dive, while the wife and kid enjoy sleeping late. I look forward to ending the dive and getting back to them in time for brunch.

Totally agree. Scuba is an odd hobby that people who do it seem put off by the idea someone might just not enjoy it. Someone who loves the ocean, snorkeling, spending as much time as they can in the water can actually not like or have a desire to dive.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Why do people always want to get their spouses/gfs into the hobbies they like?

I enjoy going on vacation, getting up early to dive, while the wife and kid enjoy sleeping late. I look forward to ending the dive and getting back to them in time for brunch.

I think the key is not to "get" anyone else into the hobby but rather perhaps express how much you enjoy your hobby, and if the other person responds to that and wants to talk about it, that's nice, and if they don't, that's fine, too.

My then-girlfriend was not a diver when she heard me mention I was doing some diving. I said nothing more. She asked me no questions. But at some point, she mentioned to me out of the blue that she had signed up for the OW course. We didn't talk about diving again until after her course. I wanted it to be HER thing. If perhaps someday it became OUR thing, that would be wonderful, but for the time being I was not about to involve myself in HER endeavor.

I'm glad it worked out for us--we eventually got married and now dive everywhere together, have taken more training courses together, and diving is a big part of our lives--but I never had that in mind at the outset.

 

[A Bajo]

OK, everyone is different but I will tell you my story:
For many years I wanted to try scuba but was scared. Finally about 10 years ago on vacation I took a try scuba course and had a very bad instructor. I was basically left alone in a pool while he watched in the morning and then took my out to the open water in the afternoon. When it was time go into the water I just couldn't do. I told him, I'm sorry, but I just can't do it. He said something like even little girls can do this and eventually pushed me into the water. Next thing I know I'm going down and I just kept telling myself to keep breathing. I started to calm down but we reached large drop and all I saw was darkness below and could see my instructor. I really panicked. My instructor came over and tried to calm me down but just kept shaking my head no. Upon reaching the boat he told me that he was afraid I was going to hyperventilate- I almost used up a whole tank. I had nightmares about the experience for a long time.

Fast forward to a few months ago. I talked to a local dive shop and explained my experience and said he I want to try again but I need to go slow and really understand the dynamics so I have control. I feel a big part of the fear- at least for me- was not having control.

It sounds like she wants to do and maybe her doing it without is better (or maybe you can take the course again with her if she prefers if that is allowed). Personally I would try to emphasize that she will get great satisfaction of doing it even if in the end she decides diving is not for her. I think diving together would be wonderful and an activity you can enjoy together for many year. Then again some couples need their time apart.

Well this was a long first post...

I was having trouble locating something specific to my situation in the forums so I decided I'd better ask. My apologies if this has been covered somewhere.

My spouse and I did a Discover Scuba experience in December 2021. I realized she was having trouble a couple of times and flagged down the instructor to put attention on her. With the mask and regulator I was unaware of how upset my wife was but she trooped on through. The DSD pool portion was comingled with 6 divers getting OW and Advanced OW, 4 of the divers unattended minors (10-16 yo), a father son pair then us. I found that the amount of instruction spent on us was very marginal and only when my wife got upset did the instructor break off to help. We got onto the boat portion and were out over the reef when my wife and I got our 2 minute instruction on back roll. While waiting for the instructor at the bottom of the rope maybe 10' down I noticed my wife on the surface and the instructor helping her out of the equipment. I resurfaced and joined her on the boat while the instructor got on with 2 father son pairs doing their OW and AOW dives. When the instructor came back to the boat to ask if we were ready to do our portion I just let my wife decide. When she said she would do it I made the decision to stay on the boat so that she would have 1-to-1 time with the Instructor. She appeared to have a good time and was calm at the bottom of the rope watching the fish.

We returned home from the trip and I felt her out on the experience. She told me that it seemed like a good thing for us to do together in the future and we should get our OW certs, she was just going to hold off until the summer and find someone she was comfortable to do this with. I went ahead and got my Cert and another specialty before taking a break to regroup.

I now suspect she will not follow through and I have no intention of pressuring or shaming. I kind of want to know how I can now dive and make that a part of our vacations without being that person. Yes I am bummed out about another potential pastime I may not be able to share with my spouse.

I understand that Dive Operations are under pressure to stack tourists to pay bills but I am now significantly pissed about how this went down, no offense to the instructor who did the best that she could.