Question about skills that weren't easy to learn

[Sabanist]

I didn't have a problem with any of that, but I did screw up on the ooa simulation. Ok so we are at 65'. The instr tells me he is ooa, I take out my primary, but forgot to take a breath before removing it.

So here I am at the sea floor about to take a big ok breath of sea water. I nearly panicked. But I'm pretty proud to say I kept my head and grabbed the secondary and put it in, I did suck in a bit of water, but coughed a bit in my reg and was fine.

I think it's simply amazing what we are capable of when there is no alternative. I knew getting the reg in my mouth was the only way I was swimming out of that water unaided. And by god I wasn't drowning

Never made another dive error again, but I'm still new to this

 

[nes999]

During my check out dive another diver kicked my mask off. Took a soild 5 minetes to find my mask. You just have to trust your training.

 

[DukeAMO]

OK, so I took some time to practice putting my snorkel in, and putting my face underwater (in the sink or bath) with no mask on. That's a good trick, and it is pretty much the same as taking a mask off with a regulator (and since I won't have the regulator again until the next pool session, it's the best I can do for the moment.)

I am starting to get better at breathing like that, but a small amount of water does still get into the snorkel. After about 10 breaths or so, I have to clear it because I have to fight to pull air through the water. But for some reason, breathing out hard doesn't do the trick. (The snorkel has a one-way valve to clear water on the bottom.) I'm guessing that it'll be easier to clear the regulator if I need to, because it has the purge button to help with that, and I have no problem with regulator exchanges. But does anyone have more troubleshooting ideas?
1) Why is water still getting in, slowly?
2) Why can't I clear it? I end up having to take out the mouthpiece, dump it, and start again.

 

[RonFrank]

I think you have an abundance of advice from the Mod Squad. The one thing no one talks about is skills AFTER OW. These drills are not something to be completed and then put on the shelf. No, you should practice mask drills often after certification. I still do them a few times a year. I've had my mask dislodged from my face twice unexpectedly. Unexpected Mask removal will happen if you dive a lot.

 

[DukeAMO]

Many thanks to all of you. I did much better with the "mask off" skills this weekend. I had no problem at all with the skill where you flood your mask and take it off, swim (with help steering, since I was wearing contacts and kept my eyes closed), put the mask on and clear it. I think the two things that helped me the most were: 1) leaning forward or looking down, and 2) practicing breathing through a snorkel without a mask on at home.

I had a huge amount of anxiety about the whole thing, but it's getting much better. Practice and mastering skills makes the anxiety gradually go down.

As for the snorkel filling with water, that does seem to be resolved by using the regulator, which clears itself when you breathe out.

The only new skill I had a hard time with this weekend was taking off the weight belt at depth and putting it back on, and that's just a matter of practice. (I have to wear a lot of weight, and I got two leg cramps at once from struggling with it.) It was ugly, but I eventually pulled it off, and I'm sure it'll be easier next time.

Open water dives, here we come!

 

[Scuba-dan]

Hi all,

My husband and I are about halfway though getting our PADI Open Water Diver certifications. We've finished the first 4 chapters of the coursework and the first 3 confined water dives. Our checkout dives will be at the end of March in the Florida Springs.

My husband has just flown through learning his skills (lucky), but I struggled with two of them.

The first one was the one where you have to take off your mask underwater, breathe through the regulator for a minute without holding your nose (the hard part!), put the mask back on and clear it. I struggled with that one because water kept coming in through my nose when I breathed in through my mouth. I actually managed a few breaths that way, until there was too much water in my mouth to deal with. It took me 3 or 4 tries to get that one, but I did finally pass it (phew).

The second one was the one where you have to simulate a regulator free-flow by holding down the purge button, and "sip" air out of the regulator without closing your mouth around it. I struggled with that one because I kept getting water in my mouth instead of air. Again, that one took 3 or 4 tries (and some nice practice of the controlled emergency ascent from about 12 feet down, haha).

I think the trick in both cases was to look down. With the first one, looking down trapped a bubble of air in my nose. Also, maybe I just got better at really not breathing in through my nose with practice? With the regulator, I think the air was bubbling past my mouth at first, instead of into it. Once I held it below my mouth I found the air.

I got frightened (and frustrated) with both of them, though. The instructor was nice about it, saying that he really admires the students who struggle with a few things and push through it anyway. But I feel like I need to practice them some more to get my confidence back.

The good news is that I still have 2 more confined water dives, and in the last dive we'll have enough time to practice whatever we want and mostly play around. And then 2 more open water dives after that.

So my questions are, any other tips on how to practice those skills while I'm in training so I could use them in real life? And secondly, have others had experiences with getting a little freaked out in training and getting back to a good comfort level? I was much more confident before I ran into a couple of things that were difficult for me!

I had the same problem with the mask. In the confine water I was strugling not sure why because I can go under water without a mask, open my eyes and no problem. I was nervous when it came to the open water but actually it went without a problem and it was easy. To this day, and I've only been certified for 1 yr, I still practice that skill when I come out of all my dives.


As for the freeflow, well we did our open dive in a quarry here and the water was at 38C. At 55 feet my reg actually free flow, but we got such a good training that I never panic, jump on my buddy tank and we ended up practicing our buddy breathing. 2nd dive at 60 feet my second reg free flow again this time way faster than the 1st time but still able to keep it in, we did our safety stop while my buddy still close and monitering the PSI level, I had to do my CESA task, well I signal my instructor, out of air and did the cesa. The next day my buddy reg free flow also, and not that it is a laughing matter by we still laugh about it today...


I hope you conquer that problem, good luck on theopen dive.

 

[DukeAMO]

Wow, what a story Scuba-dan! Talk about bad luck with regulators. We had a brand new regulator free-flow on land yesterday. And I've already seen 2 o-rings fail in the pool sessions. Good thing we had spares with us.

Well, I did it - I passed the open water certification today! Thank you to everyone for the tips; they were very helpful. I might have given up without the extra support. Inhaling water is scary!

I practiced the free-flowing regulator at the end of the last dive today. I think I've got that one down; it was just figuring it out the first time that was difficult. I just had the mouthpiece a little too far away from my mouth the first few times.

For some reason I still had some trouble with the partial mask flood and clear and full mask flood and clear in open water. I ended up inhaling a bit of water on both of them. Maybe I wasn't looking down enough? I dunno; I can clear a normal leaky mask with no problem. But my instructor did a very good thing by keeping me on the bottom so I could learn another useful skill -- coughing and recovering through the regulator! You have to learn how to work through that at some point, anyway. That was not fun, but I'm very glad I learned how to do it.

Immediately after that, I had to do the regulator recovery. The last thing I wanted to do 30 seconds after getting my breath back was to take the regulator out, hah! But I did that too, no problem. Sometimes you just have to ignore your instincts for a minute.

I did just fine with the full mask removal and replacement in open water. I was nervous and unhappy about it, but I pulled it off without much trouble. I don't think I coughed at all, and I even figured out why my mask wouldn't clear and fixed it (twisted strap). Practice, I guess.

Sigh, I'm really not going to look forward to practicing that more, but I'll make myself do it. I think I'll force myself to do it once at the end of each dive, like a few people suggested.

Thanks again!

 

[Scuba-dan]

Well congratulation on the certification. Now you just have to go out there and have fun. I bought all my gear right away and it made all the difference in confidence and obviously going diving more often. Now I'm getting ready to go diving in 1 month in Riviera Maya. I just can't wait....