I had a bad and potentially dangerous experience on my first dive in almost 10 years, which I did in Roatan, Honduras, with a supposedly reputable dive shop. Before the dive, I took a refresher course with the shop, which included figuring out my weighting. I cautioned the instructor that I appear to weigh a lot less than I actually do and that I had not been given enough weight initially in past diving experiences. Low and behold, the instructor initially guessed I needed much less weight than I did, and she needed to keep adding weights (in the shallow water where we did the refresher) to get things right. I made a mistake by not myself noting the amount of weight we finally figured out that I needed.
When I went to gear up for my first dive after the refresher, things did not look right. My girlfriend (who was diving with me) was given a BCD other than the one she used in the training course, and I thought there was not as much weight on me as we had determined I needed. The dive shop workers insisted that everything was exactly as it should be. I proceeded with the dive, assuming I was just overly anxious and being overcautious, as a result of not having dived for so long.
From there, everything unraveled. I could not get myself to sink after fully deflating the BCD. The divemaster told me to use a tow line to pull myself down and continue to try to drain the BCD, which did not give me a free hand with which to equalize. Once near the bottom, I could not swim forward without floating upwards, and I had to exert a lot of effort to try to "push" the water up and myself down. Eventually, as a result of all this strain, I began to experience fatigue. I also got to a point where I could no longer equalize after going up and down so much, and I was too busy trying to stay down to continually clear my mask. I signaled to the divemaster that I wanted to go to the surface, after showing him that I was floating upward even while staying completely still underwater. At the surface, I told him I wanted to abort the dive. At this point, I was completely fatigued and it was difficult for me, who am typically a strong surface swimmer, to get myself to the boat.
I recounted what happened to the dive shop manager upon my return. She and I checked my records against the weight on my belt and found I had been given four pound less than I needed. I am safe and fine, and all is well that ends well, but now I feel very anxious about diving again in the future. I am going to Indonesia this summer, and I was hoping to dive at some of its wonderful sites, but I feel considerable trepidation about the prospect of this. Has anyone been through something similar to this with an inexperienced diver? What are the best ways to address it? Where would be the best places in Indonesia to repeatedly do guided easy dives in calm conditions to get used to diving safely again, without spending a ton of money?
Thanks,
Tim
When I went to gear up for my first dive after the refresher, things did not look right. My girlfriend (who was diving with me) was given a BCD other than the one she used in the training course, and I thought there was not as much weight on me as we had determined I needed. The dive shop workers insisted that everything was exactly as it should be. I proceeded with the dive, assuming I was just overly anxious and being overcautious, as a result of not having dived for so long.
From there, everything unraveled. I could not get myself to sink after fully deflating the BCD. The divemaster told me to use a tow line to pull myself down and continue to try to drain the BCD, which did not give me a free hand with which to equalize. Once near the bottom, I could not swim forward without floating upwards, and I had to exert a lot of effort to try to "push" the water up and myself down. Eventually, as a result of all this strain, I began to experience fatigue. I also got to a point where I could no longer equalize after going up and down so much, and I was too busy trying to stay down to continually clear my mask. I signaled to the divemaster that I wanted to go to the surface, after showing him that I was floating upward even while staying completely still underwater. At the surface, I told him I wanted to abort the dive. At this point, I was completely fatigued and it was difficult for me, who am typically a strong surface swimmer, to get myself to the boat.
I recounted what happened to the dive shop manager upon my return. She and I checked my records against the weight on my belt and found I had been given four pound less than I needed. I am safe and fine, and all is well that ends well, but now I feel very anxious about diving again in the future. I am going to Indonesia this summer, and I was hoping to dive at some of its wonderful sites, but I feel considerable trepidation about the prospect of this. Has anyone been through something similar to this with an inexperienced diver? What are the best ways to address it? Where would be the best places in Indonesia to repeatedly do guided easy dives in calm conditions to get used to diving safely again, without spending a ton of money?
Thanks,
Tim