Where to go from here, if anywhere? Or: should I keep trying or...stick to snorkeling

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

@maybepossibly Don't be embarrassed, you're not the first or the last person to have difficulty getting comfortable underwater.

My husband is a strong swimmer and loves the water and he took to it very quickly but I was very nervous at first, and I had problems with ear clearing and buoyancy. He was patient and supportive and eventually I started to feel comfortable - and that is a big part of the solution - feeling comfortable and confident. If this is truly something that you want to do then hang in there, keep trying, and look for an instructor that will work with you and be patient and supportive. Good luck!
 
@maybepossibly you might ask @Redfoot for some advice. He was struggling recently with delays in getting certified, the need for a refresher, etc., but his local dive shop was doing a trip on the Turks & Caicos Aggressor and they had an opening. The dive shop owner worked with him personally, gave him a refresher, and dived as his buddy on the trip and he got certified and had lots of chances to improve skills and get comfortable, see his report below:

Turks & Caicos Aggressor 4/7 to 4/13

You don't need to be certified but you could use some personalized attention.
 
Personal thoughts on this is that you can probably manage to dive and get comfortable but a lot depends on a number of factors:
1) Get the right instructor and preferably one to one tuition. I did (it did cost more money) but I don't regret paying more for a second. The attention to me alone was worth it.
2) Try to understand that virtually everything can and should be done slowly underwater. It is very very easy to think that skills and drills need to be done quickly (especially when the instructor does it pretty quickly) but most skills can and should be done slowly
3) If you are having an issue, slow right down and remember to breath slowly.

Not every instructor has the time or attitude to properly work with a relatively nervous diver - spend time sounding them out before signing up with them.

I would second other peoples thoughts that maybe a second course might be worthwhile or least an extended refresher.
 
Just curious....what skill is required where you don't breath for 30 seconds?

In PADI there is an OW level skill that has you attain neutral buoyancy and attempt to be motionless in the water column for 30 seconds...you are supposed to be breathing during these 30 seconds and it is expected that you rise and fall slightly with each inhalation and exhalation. The idea is to show that you can obtain and maintain neutral buoyancy and maintain your position in the water without flapping your arms and legs around. Holding your breath defeats the purpose and is relatively dangerous.

-Z
 
Just curious....what skill is required where you don't breath for 30 seconds?

In PADI there is an OW level skill that has you attain neutral buoyancy and attempt to be motionless in the water column for 30 seconds...you are supposed to be breathing during these 30 seconds and it is expected that you rise and fall slightly with each inhalation and exhalation. The idea is to show that you can obtain and maintain neutral buoyancy and maintain your position in the water without flapping your arms and legs around. Holding your breath defeats the purpose and is relatively dangerous.

-Z
Probably referring to the CESA skill, where you exhale for 30 feet and 30 seconds.
 
Chances are you will need to start over and it would probably be a great way to build your skill set anyway. I don’t know of any shops in our neck of the woods that would take you diving even privately with a cert from 10 years ago and really nothing since then. But even without that skills like mask clearing are essential for you to be a good safe diver. What do you do at depth if you cannot clear your mask? Feeling comfortable doing the skill sets will build your confidence. You could even practice snorkeling or in a pool. If it turns out that you try again and still don’t reach a comfort level, don’t let it bother you. Keep going with snorkeling and enjoy it. Everyone is different. I love flying but would never feel good about jumping out of a plane.
 
It sounds like things unraveled with equipment issues triggering your anxiety. The hair issue can be a problem, or so I'm told. (What's left of mine is very short.) There are several ways around this, from wearing a hood to having a fabric cover over the mask strap. It's the same problem for snorkeling though.

Unfamiliar equipment makes life tough. I'll relay my own incompetence on this, just 2 days ago. I was practicing "demonstration quality skills" in the pool and got another person practicing skills to be a "victim" so I could practice rescue skills. I botched it the first time. One problem was my lack of familiarity with this diver and how they wore their gear. (The tank was so high that I couldn't easily get my hand under to support the neck appropriately.) The other problem was that I didn't know the diver's gear. Their LP inflator was located low on the BC, not the standard inflator hose. I found it easily, but since I've not used one I didn't know which direction inflated. Figured it out, but slower than I would have liked. The BC was an Aqualung, which has unusual clips. I've undone them on rental/pool gear I've used myself easily enough, but I couldn't get one strap undone on my "victim."

The good news is that on a repeat attempt it went smoothly enough. I'd like to think in a real emergency I would have thrown "doing it by the book" out the window and adapted techniques to the situation.

I suspect the same will be true for you: Things went rough with gear the first time. But now you know what went wrong, you can correct and move on.
 
... I should note here that my lack of chill is not a scuba-only thing. Never had an actual panic attack or anything extreme, but everything makes me nervous. Totally normal non-dramatic non-potentially-fatal things make me nervous.

I have a different perspective than all the other posts that are encouraging you to proceed. Given the above, I'm not sure that scuba is an activity for you. There are quite a number of things that can and do go sideways in scuba. Most are relatively insignificant, some not so much. You need to be able to think clearly and not get worked up, let alone panic, when something happens.

You said "Totally normal non-dramatic non-potentially-fatal things make me nervous." You should consider what your reaction might be if, for example. you got tangled in your dive flag line, or got disoriented and weren't sure which direction to swim to the boat or shore, or surfaced and couldn't easily locate the boat because there were waves, or your mask leaked and kept flooding slowly, or many other little things that regularly happen.

Panic is almost always what kills, not the original problem. Confidence that you can handle what ever comes up is arguably the most important skill in scuba. Of course that confidence has to be backed up by ability & knowledge. The ability & knowledge can be learned. Confidence not so easily.

I would recommend doing a lot of snorkeling, and I mean every chance you get. There is a lot of good freshwater snorkeling. A lot more than freshwater diving in most places. There's also a lot of good warmwater/saltwater snorkeling. Once you feel totally at home in the water, then perhaps revisit diving.
 
there's plenty of other stuff for the risk averse to do like walking backwards across freeways blindfolded

you're either feeling it or you're not feeling it

Sometimes in the backyard watching diving videos with mask and snorkel I'm tipping water on my head
 
Since you said that this anxiety isn't limited to diving, I'd maybe talk to someone about general anxiety and how amped up you are. Not saying that there's anything wrong with you, but if this isn't limited to diving, then it's likely something else bleeding over into a new, more high stakes environment. The others have put forth really good advice about finding an instructor willing to take things slow and to try and get some one-on-one time. When I took my OW, I hated doing the mask drills and couldn't stand being in the water without something covering my eyes. There was only one other student in the class so the instructor took extra time with me to talk things through and have me do smaller drills slowly building up to a full mask removal, and that helped a lot.

That's just my two cents, good luck! There's no shame in taking the long road to diving, and no shame if you decide it's not for you.
 

Back
Top Bottom