djpeteski
Registered
The wife and I took the open Water Cert (PADI) this weekend and last. Last weekend was the pool sessions which were a hot mess (too many people, way to hot to wear a wet suit, and poor instruction). This weekend were supposed to be the check dives that consisted of a lake day and a sea day (drift diving in Palm Bay, FL).
The lake dives went pretty good. I feel my descent is way to rapid and I get so disoriented. A few times I found myself ascending for seemingly no reason. Like I was 20-25 ft down, then next thing I know my head is crowing the surface. I seem to be on the bottom or on the top, not much in between. Also I use a lot of air compared to my probable diving partner (wife) After the first two dives, I had 300 lbs of air, she had well over 1000.
One trick I used was to always fill my bcd from my lungs rather then using the inflation button. That helped some.
The ocean dives were called because of weather. The only skills we have left to demonstrate is inflating the safety sausage and telling correspondingly bad and dirty jokes. This will be rescheduled this coming weekend (probably).
We are scheduled for a cruise in December and plan on doing a two tank dive in St. Johns. However, we would really like to do at least one dive between now and then with people that are more experienced (and understanding). We are both teachers at heart (with my wife having a masters in education), and would like to get with someone who teaches well.
One of the things that was troubling, is the lead instructor was pushing us to take more certifications when we are not even comfortable with the skills we are/were supposed to be learning. I feel like there is a lot of "we don't know what we don't know".
So in summary:
- How does one keep orientation during descent?
- Any way to keep from popping up 20 feet?
- How does one use less air?
- What are some good dive trips, from the central Florida area, where we might get some instruction or have some really good dive guides?
The lake dives went pretty good. I feel my descent is way to rapid and I get so disoriented. A few times I found myself ascending for seemingly no reason. Like I was 20-25 ft down, then next thing I know my head is crowing the surface. I seem to be on the bottom or on the top, not much in between. Also I use a lot of air compared to my probable diving partner (wife) After the first two dives, I had 300 lbs of air, she had well over 1000.
One trick I used was to always fill my bcd from my lungs rather then using the inflation button. That helped some.
The ocean dives were called because of weather. The only skills we have left to demonstrate is inflating the safety sausage and telling correspondingly bad and dirty jokes. This will be rescheduled this coming weekend (probably).
We are scheduled for a cruise in December and plan on doing a two tank dive in St. Johns. However, we would really like to do at least one dive between now and then with people that are more experienced (and understanding). We are both teachers at heart (with my wife having a masters in education), and would like to get with someone who teaches well.
One of the things that was troubling, is the lead instructor was pushing us to take more certifications when we are not even comfortable with the skills we are/were supposed to be learning. I feel like there is a lot of "we don't know what we don't know".
So in summary:
- How does one keep orientation during descent?
- Any way to keep from popping up 20 feet?
- How does one use less air?
- What are some good dive trips, from the central Florida area, where we might get some instruction or have some really good dive guides?
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