Panic!!!

[Mantaray95616]

You have had a lot of responses regarding your little panic attack. As a veteran instructor, I suggest that you treat mask clearing as a normal part of your dive. Get used to it. Mostly it will be for clearing water that has leaked into your mask. The same technique is used for a fully flooded mask or replacing a dislodged mask. I have even flooded my mask on purpose to clear the faceplate. You have already discovered that a flooded mask does not affect your ability to breath or see underwater so take it in your stride. A safety stop is optional but it is recommended that you ascend at no more than 60ft per minute. A good guide is to watch your exhaust bubbles and ascend at the same rate.

Mask clearing should be practiced in the pool until you master it. I taught a comprehensive SCUBA course in a diferent era. Students were not taught the basics of snorkeling until they proved they could swim, They were not taught the basics of SCUBA until they proved themselves proficient snorkelers. This incuded the ability to recover their mask and snorkel from the bottom of the pool, put them on and clear the mask before surfacing.

Mask clearing was also an integral part of many scuba drills.

 

[happy-diver]

Hey imagine driving you, your car, and all your stuff past twenty miles of ocean and gearing up to jump in a pool

I can't, it would be drive straight past to the pawn shop

 

[Nemrod]

I would not call it panic, but just a few days ago on a night dive I was feeling anxious! Should have been an easy dive but I guess the DM and captain put us down off current a bit. We were huffing into the stiff current to get on track for the reef and a nice young gent kicked me in the face knocking my mask off. I put it back on after inhaling or swallowing a little salty brew and then no sooner had I started swimming again but that his bro came over top of me as I was setting the strap behind my bun and whamo, off it goes again. Okay, still swimming, a little more seawater, I am not feeling it, in fact, since my drowning event a few years back, I am going to say I was a might anxious . Decided to screw this and go get back on the boat and call it. Nope, I get up top and I look below and the DM and group are not going to move an inch without me. So I manned up, sucked down some more seawater for good measure and went on back down so as not to ruin their dives . Even took a few really bad shots with my camera. Good thing is, happy hour I did not need salt on my margaritas . Yeah, a might anxious, I get that way now for some reason after the "event" and anxious is my best description. It is also the reason you likely will not catch me but rarely with any DH regs anymore or other contraptions, G250 baby for the win . I may need thereapy .

 

[34109411]

I would not call it panic, but just a few days ago on a night dive I was feeling anxious! Should have been an easy dive but I guess the DM and captain put us down off current a bit. We were huffing into the stiff current to get on track for the reef and a nice young gent kicked me in the face knocking my mask off. I put it back on after inhaling or swallowing a little salty brew and then no sooner had I started swimming again but that his bro came over top of me as I was setting the strap behind my bun and whamo, off it goes again. Okay, still swimming, a little more seawater, I am not feeling it, in fact, since my drowning event a few years back, I am going to say I was a might anxious . Decided to screw this and go get back on the boat and call it. Nope, I get up top and I look below and the DM and group are not going to move an inch without me. So I manned up, sucked down some more seawater for good measure and went on back down so as not to ruin their dives . Even took a few really bad shots with my camera. Good thing is, happy hour I did not need salt on my margaritas . Yeah, a might anxious, I get that way now for some reason after the "event" and anxious is my best description. It is also the reason you likely will not catch me but rarely with any DH regs anymore or other contraptions, G250 baby for the win . I may need thereapy .

normal that anxiety kick in sometimes. No shame.

Be safe

 

[coldwaterglutton]

In any emergency situation, make sure to take your own pulse first.

 

[34109411]

In any emergency situation, make sure to take your own pulse first.

that's a good one !

 

[Mantaray95616]

I agree. Driving past miles of ocean to get to a pool to practice does not make sense. Use the ocean. It makes more sense as it is your diving environment, not the pool. (I prefer the taste of salt water over Chlorine anyway). My point was that a diver should have completely mastered the art of mask clearing BEFORE certification.

 

[happy-diver]

mask clearing

It's a nice thought chief, but class is short diving is long and the circumstance
of the filling for the clearing and state of mind invariably affect the procedure

 

[happy-diver]

you likely will not catch me but rarely with any DH regs anymore or other contraptions

Ain't that the truth Mr swim down, swim around, swim back up hopefully Nemrod

Yeah my love of contraptions is also waning, requiring the accessibility of that blast of air from a single hose

 

[Nemrod]

Ain't that the truth Mr swim down, swim around, swim back up hopefully Nemrod

The problem was that I did swim down okay and then I did swim around just fine but it was that swimming up part with lungs full of seawater was a challenge and near about got me. Maybe I exaggerate or maybe I am just hard to kill or lucky or all of those things.