hedgert
New
I dived for the first time yesterday. After watching a video the night before, then 40 minutes of theory and maybe 20 minutes in shallow water practising removing the mouthpiece, swapping to someone else's octopus and clearing the mask (all of which I managed) I was taken on a reef dive - where the first part was restricted to 5m, then the intention was to go deeper.
I had a problem twice that I couldn't work out, that my instructor put down to me panicking; but I don't think I did panic - when the problem happened (described below) I went through the skills I knew (including taking the instructors octopus), and having tried them all, I still had no air and at that point I surfaced (from 4m). This happened twice - and I don't know what happened (and having been told I panicked hasn't helped me understand).
On both occasions I was swimming around horizontal breathing through the regulator and had been for a little while (some minutes). I did have problems managing my depth - I'd been told to go up or down by pressing short bursts on the BCD valves - not to push and hold, I was getting used to how long it took and how many presses it took but I think the instructor felt I was too slow and would come over and give a firm push on the valve button - usually to put me on the bottom if I was coming down. So I'm aware that concern over not managing my own depth may have distracted me. On both occasions I suddenly found my mouth completely full of water and then I was gagging. I pressed the front of the regulator to push the water out, but it didn't seem to do anything (I mean I got plenty of air coming into my mouth and plenty of bubbles appearing, but it didn't clear the water from my mouth - I still had no air to breathe. The instructor offered me her octopus and I put that in, pressed the valve to push the water out but I still had a mouth full of water. I didn't see much option but to surface.
I'm obviously concerned about ever trying again, knowing that I can't do that (surface) from deeper than I was, and yet I don't understand how to get out of the situation I was in - to be safe. I'm not sure whether in addition to pressing on the valve to clear water I have to do something else - perhaps I wasn't breathing out at the same time - although I was needing to breathe, so I'm not sure what air I had to breathe out, or maybe somehow as I was pressing the valve I was changing the shape of my mouth and somehow letting more water in.
If I'm ever to do this again I obviously need more practice than I had up front before the dive this time, but I really need to understand how to deal with that particular situation.
Can anyone help?
I had a problem twice that I couldn't work out, that my instructor put down to me panicking; but I don't think I did panic - when the problem happened (described below) I went through the skills I knew (including taking the instructors octopus), and having tried them all, I still had no air and at that point I surfaced (from 4m). This happened twice - and I don't know what happened (and having been told I panicked hasn't helped me understand).
On both occasions I was swimming around horizontal breathing through the regulator and had been for a little while (some minutes). I did have problems managing my depth - I'd been told to go up or down by pressing short bursts on the BCD valves - not to push and hold, I was getting used to how long it took and how many presses it took but I think the instructor felt I was too slow and would come over and give a firm push on the valve button - usually to put me on the bottom if I was coming down. So I'm aware that concern over not managing my own depth may have distracted me. On both occasions I suddenly found my mouth completely full of water and then I was gagging. I pressed the front of the regulator to push the water out, but it didn't seem to do anything (I mean I got plenty of air coming into my mouth and plenty of bubbles appearing, but it didn't clear the water from my mouth - I still had no air to breathe. The instructor offered me her octopus and I put that in, pressed the valve to push the water out but I still had a mouth full of water. I didn't see much option but to surface.
I'm obviously concerned about ever trying again, knowing that I can't do that (surface) from deeper than I was, and yet I don't understand how to get out of the situation I was in - to be safe. I'm not sure whether in addition to pressing on the valve to clear water I have to do something else - perhaps I wasn't breathing out at the same time - although I was needing to breathe, so I'm not sure what air I had to breathe out, or maybe somehow as I was pressing the valve I was changing the shape of my mouth and somehow letting more water in.
If I'm ever to do this again I obviously need more practice than I had up front before the dive this time, but I really need to understand how to deal with that particular situation.
Can anyone help?