What is your biggest Fear in diving?

[OceanLover91]

This is going to sound nuts but here it is. I wanted to start diving two years ago and had no fear in the world about it but I couldn't afford it. Then last year for my 18th birthday I went tandem sky diving with my now fiance and I was slightly worried about hitting the ground and dying or becoming a mass of jello. Then I started to think about diving and sharks entered my mind. NOW I actually want to go diving with sharks (w/o a cage)!

I honestly think my only fears right now (since I'm so new) are running low on air, equipment failure, and DCI.

Mushy teenager alert!!!
To all those worried about your wife, you almost brought a tear to my eyes because that is just too sweet!!

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

Other divers who have Just enough experience, usually their Advanced adventure and a visit to buy doubles and a backplate, to make them think they know all. The cowboys who have a real overinflated opinion of their diving prowess. Those who think they have more than enough knowledge and experience to dive anything anywhere. They scare me. And I have had to be the one to go find and/or recover just such such divers.

 

[Deefstes]

Forget about sharks, entanglement, gear failure etc. For some reason, the thing that strikes fear into my heart is REVERSE BLOCK. I've never encountered it and I don't know of anyone who has but just the idea of being trapped 5m below the surface with the choice of drowning or popping an ear drum frightens me.

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

I fear the she-pee. Creeps me out....

 

[Zenyetti]

Biggest fear - Dive boat flipping on a rough launch. Not sure about where you guys are but here in SA the diving is done 95% of the time via surf launch in a Rubber Duck, and sometimes it can be quite rough ala Aliwal Shoal. Can only think that a flip in the surf zone, however rare it may be (although with some skippers it may be more likely than you think!) would seriously ruin your day. As for sharks, the more the merrier! Those with an unreasonable fear of them check out the Sharklife website - help us out!

 

[Deefstes]

Biggest fear - Dive boat flipping on a rough launch.

Yeah, I'm with you there. I haven't had a rough launch for a while now but there has been some where we went airborne and I have seen a boat being flipped by a wave once. It's not pretty.

We've had a rough boat experience once when the seas were quite rough at Ponta Malongane (Mozambique). The launch wasn't particularly nice and the dive was downright horrendous. We had virtually no visibility and got flung around by the surge too much to actually see anything on the reef.

The real whopper came with the beaching though when the skipper overran the wave so the boat stopped dead in it's tracks on the dry sand and then got walloped by another wave from behind. The end result was that almost everyone, the skipper included, got flung from the boat in all directions. My wife was less fortunate and broke her nose on the floorboard and her foot in the foot strap.

 

[SeaSoulSelf]

I watched my dad waste away from cancer, and that scares me more than a Great White Shark ever could. A shark attack would have been quicker and more merciful. I'm darn sure not going to try and entice a shark to attack, but after watching what cancer does to a person, a shark just isn't as scary anymore.

Hoomi, I know exactly what you're saying. Watching what lung cancer did to my dad was horrifying. He got tired of the doctors, chemo & radiation and decided he'd had enough and was going fishing.


Underwater scary things: Downcurrents. Having something happen to my hubby/#1 dive buddy.

 

[drbill]

Have I weighed in here already? My biggest fear would be driving to the dive site on LA's freeways. Good thing I live on Catalina where I just drive my golf cart down to the dive park or the dive shop to catch the boat.

I had a serious fear of sharks, primarily great whites, when I first moved to California in the late 60s. We never encountered any in the lakes and quarries of Chicago. After 40+ years of diving here off Catalina and the Channel Islands, I've had them swim by... showing little to no interest in yours truly (and due to my case of VET, Video Editing Tummy,., I'm looking more and more like a seal every day).

 

[Goannaman]

I was never afraid of sharks. Although, until recently barracudas bothered me.

I suppose it is the way the just tend to hang there scoping you out. They don't seem to bother me anymore, so that is one irrational fear conquered.

 

[Sas]

My wife was less fortunate and broke her nose on the floorboard and her foot in the foot strap.

Ouch!!!