PADI certification: So, I'm worried about nothing

[Hawkwood]

@Javik About those tender toes: I wear nylon socks with my dive boots. I saw them self destruct on a liveaboard and I was putting all sorts of bandages to keep on diving. Since I've gone to those very thin nylon socks, I can dive day in and out for weeks at a time with no problems.

Yup, great in full foot fins too. For some reason, I have never had a problem with mine disappearing. Hmmm...

 

[gcarter]

@Javik About those tender toes: I wear nylon socks with my dive boots. I saw them self destruct on a liveaboard and I was putting all sorts of bandages to keep on diving. Since I've gone to those very thin nylon socks, I can dive day in and out for weeks at a time with no problems.

+1. Tip given to me early on by the owner of Sharky's. Much more comfortable on the feet. MUCH more.

 

[Bob DBF]

@Javik About those tender toes: I wear nylon socks with my dive boots. I saw them self destruct on a liveaboard and I was putting all sorts of bandages to keep on diving. Since I've gone to those very thin nylon socks, I can dive day in and out for weeks at a time with no problems.

I ran into the same problem and found a proper application of duct tape around the affected areas worked well, and I later picked up nylon socks which is a more elegant solution. The tape held the toes stable and protected my skin from the scuffing on the boots I was wearing. The up side of the duct tape, besides working, was that my daughter was quite embarrassed by my solution.


Bob

 

[The Chairman]

Yeah, @Bob DBF, it's hard to find socks for sale on a liveaboard! I think I used some medical cling tape, but that caused issues at the edges. I'm a firm believer that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I usually have two or three pairs in the Sprinter so I'm never out.

 

[JBFG]

Plus it is easier to get in and out of your wet boots if you wear a thin socks.
when I dive wet, I always wear some

 

[agilis]

Socks are critical if you are diving in areas where there is very fine sand. Without socks the tops of your toes can become raw very quickly.

 

[claymore]

My swimming work out consists of putting on my fins flopping on my back and doing laps dragging a water dumbbell in each hand for drag. I like to get about a mile of the flutter kick and about 1/2 mile of the frog kick once a week. The water dumbbells add drag so it is more like diving in your gear.

 

[Javik]

I've been too busy to go swimming for a week, but finally went again today for about 4 hours.

I tried out a new toy, a waterproof MP3 player. It works okay as long as the earplugs seal in my ear canal tightly.

• No wetsuit today, only O'neill black lycra T-shirt and Tyr black lycra jammer, and -10 diopter swim goggles.
• Back float for 20 minutes breathing off top of lungs.
• Front float for 20 minutes same, lay face down holding breath, expel it, pop up, grab another, continue face down.

• Do the PADI finning qualification laps again. Fins, fin keepers, fin socks, -10 diopter dive mask. No snorkel. Lay face up and kick with feet 99% of the time for 32 laps / 1 mile, breathing through open mouth face up.
• Breathe in, left fin up, right down. Breathe out, left down, right up, once per second.
• Barely use arms at all, keep track of laps on fingers which aren't doing anything anyway.
• Moderate leg cramping at first since I don't do stretching, but eh isn't finning stretching? Seems like cramping is reduced if I flex toes down on downstroke, flex toes up on upstroke.

• After that, I put on the Darkfin webbed rubber gloves and practiced sinking / floating starting on shallow side and sinking progressively deeper. Hyperventilate, breathe all the way out, rapidly sink straight to the bottom, with arms in the air. This is probably a pretty good simulation of drowning but the lifeguards don't say anything. So I keep going..
• Practice remaining calm laying flat on bottom of pool in 5 ft of water for a few seconds with no air in lungs, then clawing / pushing back to surface again with the webbed gloves and fins. Gradually work towards the deep end doing this, breathing all the way out and sinking 7.. 8.. 9.. 10..11..12 ft to lay on bottom of pool, then push up to surface again.

• Ear pressure discomfort doing this deep sinking, so practiced Valsava at about 3 ft down and then 6 ft down. Eardrums now stretch outward at surface, which is a bit uncomfortable, but things are more comfortable now when sinking back down.

• I have no weight belt, so I borrow The 10lb Brick and practice trying to float holding onto it, use it to sink with lungs full of air. Do that for about half an hour, getting exhausted.

• Discover that it's very easy while hanging at the surface, to do an acrobatic flip underwater with the Darkfin webbed gloves. Practice doing forward and backward somersaults, then doing multiple rolls underwater without coming up for air. Also for some reason it is easier to swim down with a lungful of air by doing a backflip from the head-up floating position with the webbed gloves. I dunno.
• Start increasing the backwards flip depth, until I'm doing a backwards flip and going down to the bottom of the pool. Again progressively do this from shallow, down the ramp, to deep end.
• Finally, get to the point of, floating next to diving board, facing shallow end, hyperventilate, take a deep breath, do a back flip, swim upside down facing the wall to the bottom of the pool. Fin along the bottom of the pool in 10-12ft deep area for about 20 ft, then slowly arc upwards and surface in the middle of the pool. Woo!

• Practice laying sideways in water next to edge of pool, hook a foot on the side of pool and roll myself sideways up onto the pool deck laying down. Then reverse it to enter softly. Repeat a few more times.

• Practice dead-man floating vertical in deep end.

• Take off fins for restroom break, then try doing some more of this stuff again using only the Darkfin gloves. Much harder since bare human feet are nearly useless for underwater propulsion without fins.

• The MP3 player headphones got rid of all the surface water-slap ear discomfort, just as I was expecting. They don't work so well going deep though. It took a while figuring out how to push them in far enough into my ears, so they don't wiggle out doing all this diving down and rising up.

I got out of the pool when the YMCA is closing. Lifeguard says, "wow that was quite a workout you did this afternoon!" I told the lifeguard I am not a good swimmer. She sounds surprised, but I explain that if you take away the toys, I'm not very good at all.

I'm just exploiting my own biology. Humans move around on land with their feet, not their hands, so even as a professional chair sitter my legs are naturally more muscular than my arms. So it seems to me that finning is clearly going to be easier for a beginner nonathlete like me, while arming is going to be exhausting very quickly.

Meanwhile without fins, bare legs/feet are mostly useless for forward propulsion, and contribute very little other than for keeping your legs up, as your arms pull you forward and do most of the work.

My arms are currently mostly used for typing on keyboards, driving places rather than walking, pressing elevator buttons rather than taking the stairs, and lifting cans of Pepsi to my mouth. They don't have quite the biology right now, for moving me long distances through water. Therefore I would have to be an idiot, or a professional arm-swimmer athlete, to choose the non-finning PADI certification.


As such, I now may be confidently able to do everything I listed here, swimming down and across the bottom of the deep end, with my Darkfin webbed gloves and U.S. Divers split fins......... but I still have no idea if I'm a "good swimmer".

My general answer is that I am probably still in the beginner territory for unaided human swimming, but I'm also apparently getting pretty good at skin diving, if I have my webbed gloves, mask, and fins, and they don't break or fall off.


Continuing to use the webbed rubber gloves for swimming practice will more rapidly increase arm strength/endurance vs not using them, so there's no real reason not to use them in the pool.

They're not on the list of approved items for the basic PADI mask/fin/snorkel and float certification, so I am aware I need to do that much without them.

 

[tursiops]

Jarvik, you need to have a snorkel for your 300m/yd mask-fin-snorkel swim, even if you are on your back. You don't have to breathe through it, however. Also, best that you check with your instructor to make sure doing it on your back is acceptable to him/her.

 

[Bob DBF]

Jarvik, you need to have a snorkel for your 300m/yd mask-fin-snorkel swim, even if you are on your back. You don't have to breathe through it, however.

I wouldn't use it as, dependent on the angle of your body in the water, it is more apt to be a straw than a snorkel.


Bob