Newbie issues. What is your dive problems stats?

[Noemi]

Just a quick update: Today was so much better. I got Dive 1 done. We were partway into Dive 2 when the instructor had to thumb it due to ear issues (he'd done multiple dives earlier in the day with other students). Instructor was very patient with me. Started in shallow area of quarry to get me comfortable under the water again, then took me on a tour of part of the quarry, ending at a training platform, the sneaky man, as he called himself. Got about 20' down. Let me hold his hand at the beginning of the tour when I got nervous.

Go back in two weeks to finish up. I had a lot of fun once I was past the issues in my head.

This is great! Scuba diving is fun, I am glad you are getting through with it
My upcoming dive is next weekend, and I am both eager and anxious waiting for it. Anxious because I got all new gear and likely won't have a chance to test it until actually driving off and getting into the ocean. Hopefully everything will go fine.

Good luck with your training!

 

[Nikole]

I only had 1 issue...it was a beach dive, and like most beach dives, we kick out to the dive site first, and then descend. Well, it was a shallow dive, but, I ran out of air early. A shallow beach dive probably lasts around 90 minutes underwater.... Well I was under for about 40. The other buddies still had 1,900 left and I was in the red. Anyway I didn't have enough air to swim underwater back to shore so we kicked the rest of the way back.
That dive was a perfect example of the need to stay fit in a gym for diving because I was sooooo tired at the end! Not only did we make it back to shore, but it was a drift dive and. We had drifted down shore so we and a looooong walk back to the beginning as well. Ugh!!!! And this was a day where the beach started off calm, and the conditions changed in the middle of the dive (it turned wavy). Later found out that sudden change get of ocean conditions was more likely due to tropical storm Julia that miraculously appeared out of nowhere over Florida.

 

[cubbiegirlem]

Just a quick update: Today was so much better. I got Dive 1 done. We were partway into Dive 2 when the instructor had to thumb it due to ear issues (he'd done multiple dives earlier in the day with other students). Instructor was very patient with me. Started in shallow area of quarry to get me comfortable under the water again, then took me on a tour of part of the quarry, ending at a training platform, the sneaky man, as he called himself. Got about 20' down. Let me hold his hand at the beginning of the tour when I got nervous.

Go back in two weeks to finish up. I had a lot of fun once I was past the issues in my head.

Hope things go well for you when you go back. I'm assuming you're at Haigh quarry. FYI if the vis makes things to difficult it's much better in the spring before the algae blooms. (Of course it's colder!). And if you can dive in Chicago you can dive anywhere. Diving warm salt water is SO MUCH EASIER. I recently dove in freshwater for the first time in a couple years and I felt like I was just slogging through. Wait until you get to experience salt water--you'll feel like you're just floating!

 

[Marie13]

Hope things go well for you when you go back. I'm assuming you're at Haigh quarry. FYI if the vis makes things to difficult it's much better in the spring before the algae blooms. (Of course it's colder!). And if you can dive in Chicago you can dive anywhere. Diving warm salt water is SO MUCH EASIER. I recently dove in freshwater for the first time in a couple years and I felt like I was just slogging through. Wait until you get to experience salt water--you'll feel like you're just floating!

Thank you! Yes, I'm at Haigh. I'm diving dry, so cold isn't an issue. I'm planning on a weekend trip to Florida this winter to dive with a friend down there who is an instructor.

 

[jk1nole]

I've been diving for about 5 years now, but have really just started to dive frequently. While I only have 65 dives under my belt now... it feels like so many more because of the vast variety of conditions I have dove in. I have been in warm water, cold water, rough water, calm water, no current, very strong current, great vis, bad vis... etc. My point is that I view each dive as a learning experience. What can I take from each dive as a lesson to get better?

One early mistake... I jumped in with my air off. I swear I turned it on. I have no idea what happened, but I couldn't breathe in the water on the surface. I am not sure why I didn't notice before jumping in. I will never make that mistake again though. Fortunately, we were in shallow, calm water. My buddy turned it on for me.

I used to wonder how I would react at depth if my mask were to come off. Well, several dives ago it did... in 80' of water. Everything seemed to slow down when I saw it floating above my head. I just grabbed it instinctively, put it on, and cleared. That gave me a lot of confidence that the training stuck with me.

My recommendations... Find a good dive buddy to get to know. Be very observant of good divers. Ask questions and try not to be shy. LEARN, READ, and just know that you get better with practice.

 

[JonasGreenFethr]

Whelp, this will be my first post... been lurking for a while and trying to decide when to jump in, here's the good stuff (two incidents in the same dive):
My first OW dive, after a 6 year break and a SCUBA refresher class, was about 35 minutes in total. I'm breathing a **** rental reg, with a really high cracking pressure. Visibility that day was ~20 feet, 15 minutes into the dive, my buddy and I swim off of a shelf over one of the deeper spots in the quarry and, checking my depth meter (38 ft, deepest I've ever been), I realize I can't see the bottom. At the same time, I hit the thermocline, dropping the temp from near 90* to about 70*. So, hard breathing reg, no visible reference, and I feel like someone poured ice water on me: Vertigo hits really bad, my breathing spikes and a panic circle starts, "How deep am I?" Where the hell am I?" "What if I can't get enough air?"

My instinct was to shoot to the surface, but, I can't leave my buddy (about 10 feet ahead of me) and I still have a 15 foot safety stop even if I bolt. The only thing that I could think to do was trust my instruments, I was sure they didn't panic along with me. Depth gauge, SPG (stay level, slow steady breaths), depth gauge, SPG (stay level, slow steady breaths). The panic lasted, maybe, 30 seconds, I calmed down and continued the dive (with a lot less air in the tank).

Ten minutes on, my buddy signals to surface, get our bearings and continue with the dive, I agree, as we've been swimming in no particular pattern (following the guide lines laid down by the quarry staff). He starts to ascend. I start to ascend and my computer starts beeping at me to slow down... and I (again) panic as I shoot from 35 feet to 17 feet, dump my air from my BC, plummet back down to 30 feet, kick wildly, inflate my BC, and yo-yo back to 25 feet, my buoyancy now "under control" (during this carnival ride, I tell myself: "Don't hold your breath, don't hold your breath") . I see my buddy looking at me (and I'm sure wondering "What The Hell?"), descending and flashing "All OK?" I return the "OK" and we continue the dive for another 10 minutes, this time when I ascend to the surface I'm more careful of my buoyancy "control", do my safety stop, then finish the dive.

Lessons I learned (in no particular order):
1. Get your own gear as soon as you can. I was really lucky to get certified on new, top-of-the-line stuff. It really spoiled me, if I had been certified on the type of regs I rented that day, I wouldn't have ever gone diving again once I got my OW cert. I bought my own octopus two weeks after that dive.

2. Remember your training, fight your (panicking) instinct. If I had shot from 40 ft to the surface, it would have probably been "OK", but my buddy would have been alone, and what would it have solved?

3. PROPER BUOYANCY CONTROL!! (the extra exclamation point is for effect) since that dive I've dialed my weight to a "proper" amount. I was 8 pounds over for that dive.

4. Practice, Practice, Practice. I treat EVERY now as a learning dive, yes I have fun, but also view it with as critical an eye as I can.

5. Plan the dive. This was our first dive in the quarry and neither of us had any idea of max depth or features. We just went with a "let's see what's out there" attitude. Since he was the more experienced diver, I let him set the course and happily followed.

6. Log your dives. Record the good and the bad, it helps in not building a super ego "That idiot, oh,yeah... I did that too."

7. Slow and Steady. Don't push yourself, get with a group that you feel comfortable telling them if something's "off" for you before or during the dive. Ask questions, and don't be afraid to say "Nope, not doing that."

At the time I didn't think that either of these incidents were "worthy" of calling the dive, as my lack of control passed without any repercussions, other than a bloody nose post dive (sinus block). I now realize now, I'm telling a "you are so lucky" story that could very well have ended in the Accidents and Incidents sub.

Thanks all.

 

[Colliam7]

From my perspective as an Instructor, this thread has been VERY helpful. I need to remain aware, and be regularly reminded, of what newer divers and students are going through, lest I forget. So, to the OP - THANK YOU for starting this.

For me as a diver, it resonates as well, and I will try to address the specific questions raised.

So now, the questions. How often did you have issues in the beginning of your diving career? How many of them were serious? How did you solve these? Were you panicking often in the beginning?

I was somewhat uncomfortable at the start of every dive, for the first 20 dives or so. After that, it became less and less frequent. My discomfort never progressed to panic, rather I felt anxious about descending, and I probably had a sustained increase in heart rate AND breathing rate, and when underwater I would spend much of the dive thinking about how quickly I could get to the surface if I did panic. I had doubts about whether diving was really 'for me'. In hindsight, one could wonder why I continued.

That general anxiety evolved into an infrequent but nonetheless real pattern of abrupt episodes of near panic, where I would find myself starting to hyperventilate while underwater for not apparent reason. I developed a habit of taking some Wet Notes / DiveRites / whatever along on every dive, and when I felt the sensation coming on, I would stop, hover and start writing notes to myself, to 'Relax', or 'Breathe', or writing something like 'This viz is bad.' It was not the message that I wrote that was reassuring, rather the physical activity of stopping and concentrating entirely on writing was what helped.

Those days are long behind me. But, I believe I had to go through that phase in order to get to become a diver.

I am sure that things will get better with experience and also with having my own gear. My plan is to spend some more time on the drills, especially now that I am diving in the cold water, and get accustomed to the new gear I acquired. But some part of me is still worried that I will have problems every second dive or so and that would prevent me from enjoying the activity.

I will say, on the basis of my personal experience, that things will get better with time, but you have to continue to strap on the gear and get wet, in order to get past it. Your timeline may be less than mine, or not. It is hard to predict. But, one day you will probably realize, all of a sudden, 'Hey, I am at 60 ft and I feel great! This is fun.'

I believe that practicing drills and skills is essential. It may not always be easy to find a way to do that. But, what helped me was having a dive buddy who felt the same way, and we would go to the quarry several times a month just to practice. And, I still practice, regularly, to this day. When I was taking tec training years ago, we did a lot of work in COLD, DARK water in a local quarry. I had real trouble at first with the no mask drills - swimming, air sharing as the recipient, etc. I am hovering warm and comfortable in my dry suit, and I have to take my mask off in 40 degree water, and swim along in essentially black water (clear, but quite dark) at 90 feet. Whew, that was something. The shock of cold water freezing my face predictably caused my to want to inhale! And, snorting water up my nose at depth was simply not a good idea. So, to this day, I will go to our local training quarry 3-4 times a year, drop to the platform at 90 ft, take my mask off in that 40 degree water and just hover and breathe for 4-5 minutes, maybe swim around the edge of the platform while I am doing it. The process of learning and regular practice begins with the Open Water certification dives, it doesn't end there.

For what it is worth, I still have one moment every dive year, that is associated with some 'butterflies'. Our off -shore 'season' in NC generally extends into Nov / Dec. But, as a rule I don't get in the ocean from Jan - Apr, and instead spend time in my drysuit in local quarries. But, generally around mid-late May we book a charter for an offshore deep dive, sometimes a tec dive, as the initiating event for the 'season'. And, every year, as I stand at the stern, in my steel doubles, often with a couple of deco bottles clipped on, and get ready to jump into 160 feet of water, I find myself breathing just a little faster. Once I splash, it all goes away. But, I won't deny that it occurs.

 

[Marie13]

@Colliam7 thank you so much for your post. The anxiety upon descending is exactly my problem. I'm fine when I get underwater. I'm finishing up my OW dives at our local quarry tomorrow and Sunday. It's raining today. Yesterday, too, which means viz will be cruddy, that was one of my issues two weeks ago. But now I've been underwater at the quarry, I know what to expect. As a friend said, the unknown is now known. I have so many fun diving things planned for the rest of this month (including underwater pumpkin carving!), I just have to get certified! . And I'm planning on getting that done this weekend.

Wish me luck!

 

[Colliam7]

@Colliam7 thank you so much for your post. The anxiety upon descending is exactly my problem. I'm fine when I get underwater. I'm finishing up my OW dives at our local quarry tomorrow and Sunday.

One of the things that helps a number of divers is to be able to begin their descent in shallow water, and continue to descend along a sloping bottom. But, in order to execute a 5-point descent (a required OW skill, at least in PADI-land), we start at the surface, in water too deep in which to stand, and descend - not infrequently into what amounts to a green void. Even with a 'down line' for visual reference, that part can be a bit intimidating. It is easy to become disoriented, and therefore anxious. in that environment. I found years ago during my early diving, that the visual reference helped me control my descent rate, which in turn helped me mitigate my anxiety. I also try to do a slow descent with OW students along the sloping bottom of the quarry, at the start of each of the 4 OW dives, to get them acclimated to being underwater, before surfacing in deeper water, using a proper 5-point ascent, in order to then do a proper 5-point descent.

Wish me luck!

I do. You will make it, take it slow and easy, and 'visualize' the enjoyment you will feel swimming around at depth, while you are descending. Don't lose track of your buddy, or the line, or your descent rate. But, try to use the anticipation of the enjoyment to distract you from some of the anxiety.

A short story about descents. Years ago, on Dive 12 (last dive) of my Tec Deep course, we (me, the Instructor and one other student) were going to descend to 165 ft in a FL sink hole (40 Fathom Grotto), to start our dive. I had never been to that depth before (and there was a bit of anxiety beforehand, as I thought about that particular fact). At that time, the Grotto surface was covered in duckweed. So, soon after descending below the surface, the water became dark, very dark - there was simply no sunlight coming through the duckweed, beyond the small opening we created when we swam on the surface to the buoy. By the time we reached 70 feet, it was pitch black, except for our dive lights, which revealed that the water was actually amazingly clear, just devoid of ambient light. We were descending on a line, so there was a good visual reference. But, I felt like I was descending in black ink. And, I was watching my very bright dive computer reflect the increasing depth. I was also fingering the line, as a tactile monitor of my descent rate. At one point, ~100ft, I actually closed my eyes for a brief period so I didn't see the fact that I was descending, only the feeling of water moving along my face, and the light touch of the line. It was WONDERFUL, almost surreal. I had the delightful sense of floating weightlessly in a black void. (OK, I wasn't watching my buddy, or the instructor, as I should have been, for that relatively brief period. ) Of course, all good things must come to an end, and I opened my eyes to continue the dive. But, that brief interlude of descending with my eyes closed did a lot to reduce my descent anxiety. I remember it to this day.

 

[Marie13]

Green void. What a perfect description for our local quarry. I also refer to it as green Jello, from it appears in pictures.