scuba_junkie
Guest
Ok.. so as I progress with my diving (just did dives #25 and #26 2 weeks ago), I am starting to figure some things out, not figure other things out, and have also had a spooky experience.
On the spooky stuff... I posted back in July about one of those 'cant breath through this little hose' panic attacks when I was diving at Gilboa. The short of it was that I just freaked myself out when I felt like I couldnt get enough air (even though I was getting plenty) and had to fight the instinct to either pull the regulator out of my mouth and breath (doesnt work very well at 60ft down) or blast up to the surface so I could get out of there (also not a good idea). Anyways, training and rational/logical thinking paid off and I worked my way through the episode without doing anything stupid.
So ever since that dive, I have thought about that feeling of panic and that whole episode and wondered if it will happen to me again. When I talked about it here, the overall opinion was that I had a little thermal narcosis or something along those lines. Anyways, I went wreck diving up here in Lake Huron two weeks ago. I was looking forward to the dives, but when I got to depth at the first wreck (Charles S. Price... 60ft), my mind started playing games with me. The water temp was great (60+F), I felt very comfortable, but then I started to think about the feeling I had before and how it freaked me out and... well it started getting the best of me. I just talked myself through it and even though it happened about 3 times while on the dive, I figured out very quickly that it was just my fear trying to get the best of me.
We finished that dive without incident and headed to our next location, the Sport. This dive was great as well. The water temps where in the upper 60sF and the depth was about 45ft. During this dive I had my camera and started to wander around taking pictured of Gobies and other small fish, as well as my dive buddy as he explored the wreck. Just the fact of me trying to get some neat pictures took my mind off of the dive and made me relax. I finally got back to the point where I forgot I was underwater. That was the part of the dive I needed. Now I cant wait to get back in the water and keep working on getting comfortable like that again. Like they say, if you fall off the horse, get back on.
On the fumbling thing... I just cant seem to get my ascents smoothed out. Every few dives I take more weight out as I realize and get more in tune with my bouyancy control. But when I go to make an ascent, I just sort of fumble around with floating up too fast here... sinking back down a little there... and so on. I know I need more practice and dives to get better, but I was wondering if any of you have some advice for smoothing this out. Once I get to my safety stop, I usually have very little problems with staying at a certain depth range, even with nothing to use as a visual reference other than my computer. Its just getting to that point and to the surface that I have the trouble. Any ideas?
Thanks & dive safe!
On the spooky stuff... I posted back in July about one of those 'cant breath through this little hose' panic attacks when I was diving at Gilboa. The short of it was that I just freaked myself out when I felt like I couldnt get enough air (even though I was getting plenty) and had to fight the instinct to either pull the regulator out of my mouth and breath (doesnt work very well at 60ft down) or blast up to the surface so I could get out of there (also not a good idea). Anyways, training and rational/logical thinking paid off and I worked my way through the episode without doing anything stupid.
So ever since that dive, I have thought about that feeling of panic and that whole episode and wondered if it will happen to me again. When I talked about it here, the overall opinion was that I had a little thermal narcosis or something along those lines. Anyways, I went wreck diving up here in Lake Huron two weeks ago. I was looking forward to the dives, but when I got to depth at the first wreck (Charles S. Price... 60ft), my mind started playing games with me. The water temp was great (60+F), I felt very comfortable, but then I started to think about the feeling I had before and how it freaked me out and... well it started getting the best of me. I just talked myself through it and even though it happened about 3 times while on the dive, I figured out very quickly that it was just my fear trying to get the best of me.
We finished that dive without incident and headed to our next location, the Sport. This dive was great as well. The water temps where in the upper 60sF and the depth was about 45ft. During this dive I had my camera and started to wander around taking pictured of Gobies and other small fish, as well as my dive buddy as he explored the wreck. Just the fact of me trying to get some neat pictures took my mind off of the dive and made me relax. I finally got back to the point where I forgot I was underwater. That was the part of the dive I needed. Now I cant wait to get back in the water and keep working on getting comfortable like that again. Like they say, if you fall off the horse, get back on.
On the fumbling thing... I just cant seem to get my ascents smoothed out. Every few dives I take more weight out as I realize and get more in tune with my bouyancy control. But when I go to make an ascent, I just sort of fumble around with floating up too fast here... sinking back down a little there... and so on. I know I need more practice and dives to get better, but I was wondering if any of you have some advice for smoothing this out. Once I get to my safety stop, I usually have very little problems with staying at a certain depth range, even with nothing to use as a visual reference other than my computer. Its just getting to that point and to the surface that I have the trouble. Any ideas?
Thanks & dive safe!