Have fun with your training & enjoy your first OW dives !
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
Completed day two of confined water skills today and this is the first hiccup I faced. I had no issue breathing without the mask, in fact, my instructor actually made the comment - "It looked like you fell asleep down there."
But man, putting that mask back on really gave me fits - the 2nd try worked out better than the first. But it really gives you an idea as to why this stuff has to be done in class in a confined environment.
Imagine never having experienced this and being in OW and it gets knocked off!
Learning a lot and tonight found that it takes 9lbs of weight to keep me down and weighted correctly.
Can't wait until next week.
I have to admit I don't understand why mask removal is such a big deal for some people. Why do people do this with their eyes closed? I understand if you're wearing contacts, but if you're not, why not leave your eyes open? Might make it less stressful. I'm apparently also backwards because I put the strap over the back of my head (with my eyes open...) and then pull the mask down over my face. Sure, everything is blurry till you get the mask on and cleared, but I'm so damned nearsighted that I'm used to things being blurry.
you are very lucky you don't understand this. I'm another one that recommends getting the mask cleared first then dealing with the strap later. It's still the way I do it no matter what. The fact is though that it is a big deal to a lot of new divers. If it's not, again, you are lucky : )
I am not condemning my original OW instructor by no means. She was doing what the standards called for. I was only required to do a mask clear & removal once in confined water & once in open water. Those were the 2 skills I was weakest in & disliked the most. I found myself almost paranoid about losing my mask because of this. When I went to another instructor to begin my technical diving, he reviewed basic water skills, including several swims without a mask. Seeing I was week on this point, he took some extra time & worked with me on this. It was no more than repetition, but just doing it over & over again, I finally became comfortable with those skills. Now I can remove my mask & nearly fall asleep. In fact when I was beginning my full cave course I had a mask strap failure in the cave. I just got myself out of the way, pulled my back- up mask from my drysuit pocket, put it on, cleared it, put my failed mask in the pocket & carried on. Didn't miss a beat thanks to the comfort that was built through repetition.