newby worries

[cdarroch]

I forgot to mention - don't rush anything! There's no reason you should ever place a time limit on your own comfort. If you're not feeling 100% now, take it easy, nice and slow - if you're enjoying it. If you're not enjoying it, well, again - at least you tried, and that's more than most people do (and I don't just mean diving)!

 

[Jupiter31]

Your post reminds me of giving someone a puppy as a "surprise" gift.

Bad idea for many reasons.

If this is something you don't want to do - diving is not a requsite for remaining resident in the USA - don't, if you are uncomfortable in any way.

I suspect you have some diving members of your family who want you join in the "fun"

There was a recent post somewhere about husbands wanting to get their wives certified, or BF's getting GF's, and so on to have a built in dive buddy - it often ended badly.

Most of the good divers I know wanted to dive since they were kids - I know I did; never missed "Sea Hunt" or "Flipper" and watched Thunderball" numerous times (all the 1st runs, sorry to say age wise :depressed - diving is something YOU have to want to do.

 

[Hoomi]

Ginger root has been found to help with motion sickness (Mythbusters found this to be true as well). One advantage it has is that it's a natural remedy, and doesn't have the side-effects some of the pharmaceutical remedies can have.

Other than that, I can't add anything to the excellent replies you've already received.

 

[lilsas]

You've all been great! Thank you for such good advice. As far as some of the things you've all asked I do have anxiety issues on the ground as well but "panick" attacks not really unless I'm under an incredibly stressful situation or something new and frightening. I am NOT and adventurous person at heart anything other than my feet on the ground pretty much terrifies me. And for some reason water is the worst maybe because I'm not in the best of shape anymore and my swimming skills are quite rusty.
I feel bad about the certificate because I really thought I wanted to push my own limits and try diving mainly because I enjoyed the beauty i saw when snorkeling in the Bahamas so much and also because I'm really into fossilized shark teeth. I really really wanted to be able to go down and look for big the big megaladon teeth. I've spend countless hours digging at the shore for small ones. So those are the reasons I wanted to dive but I was apprehensive about it. I didn't really think my husband would go out and get me the class so when I reality hit that I had a class starting the panick set it.

Then when I realized my ears were going to be difficult and the motion sickness thing well the cards are stacked against me. The instructor has been patient and great, spending extra time with me and offered to meet me at the pool for an extra sort of one on one before the ow dive Saturday.

I am going to take him up on that so I'll have another pool this week and then two open waters this weekend. The good thing is the ow dives are spring dives so the water is going to be crystal clear and calm, if they were ocean dives I really don't think I would do it right now. I'm am totally a nervous wreck about this weekend but I am going to try and I pray I can get through it without a panic episode. I'm told we only have to go down like 30' even though the spring I guess is like 60'. I'm going to try some of the suggestions you've all offered me. Wish me luck! and thanks again!

 

[Web Monkey]

You've all been great! Thank you for such good advice. As far as some of the things you've all asked I do have anxiety issues on the ground as well but "panick" attacks not really unless I'm under an incredibly stressful situation or something new and frightening. I am NOT and adventurous person at heart anything other than my feet on the ground pretty much terrifies me. And for some reason water is the worst maybe because I'm not in the best of shape anymore and my swimming skills are quite rusty.

There are a couple of other options:

• Don't SCUBA dive. Not everybody can or actually wants to dive. There's no reason to do it if you don't want to or can't.
• Call around until you find a shop where when you ask them "How long does it take to get certified?" they say "As long as it takes". For example, I believe our current shop record is a little over 2 years of class and/or pool sessions. This won't help you any, since we're nowhere near you, however if you check around you should be able to find a shop near you that has this policy.

If you take the second option, you'll at least get a lot of time to play in the pool and at some point you'll either discover that it's really cool and you love it, or that SCUBA just isn't for you. Either way is just fine.

Whatever you do, don't let anybody push you into doing Open Water dives until you're absolutely comfortable (and even a little bored) doing all the skills in the pool.


Terry

 

[boulderjohn]

• Call around until you find a shop where when you ask them "How long does it take to get certified?" they say "As long as it takes". For example, I believe our current shop record is a little over 2 years of class and/or pool sessions. This won't help you any, since we're nowhere near you, however if you check around you should be able to find a shop near you that has this policy.

It should not be hard to find people who can accommodate you if you have the dedication for it. Just ask a shop what they can do. This past year one of our instructors did a series of private "Discover Scuba" classes with one particularly challenging student. In our shop (as in most) Discover Scuba is a very low cost introduction to scuba, but for this student it was transformed to meet the need of getting this student ready for a regular class, at the usual low introductory cost. When he had attended enough of these preparation classes to feel confident, he enrolled in the certification class. That class still took him a little longer than usual, but he finally completed it just fine.

 

[NoVaScuba]

As one newbie to another, I'd like to add a little to this. First, I hope your extra pool instruction goes well and you are able to complete the OW dives as planned.

A lot of people have trouble with the mask clearing. You are doing something completely unnatural. Your face is immersed in water and you are still trying to breath. If you happen to get a little water in your airway, the problems multiply. The advice I got is to not do anything you are not comfortable with. For the mask removal, I flooded and waited until I knew I was in control of my breathing. Sometimes that was a couple of breaths, sometimes a half dozen. Do it when you're ready, there's no time limit.

The same thing goes for the OW. If you are completing the skills in the pool, you should be able to do them in open water. But if you don't feel right, then don't do it. You can call a dive at anytime for any reason, that includes your OW dives. I was having a lot of trouble on my first OW dive with a combination of overheating from the wet suit and restricted breathing from an ill fitting hood and wet suit. After getting into the water and cooled off, the instructor asked me if I was OK to go down. I said no, I didn't think I could dive with the difficulty breathing. We managed to make some adjustments and I was able to complete the dive with the class, but they also assured me if it wasn't right, we'd fit the dives in later.

Your instructor should be the same way. You've got several problems to overcome. It's likely you can overcome them but it may take more time. Take as much as you need to get it right.