Failed Open Water Cert Dive - Panicked and Bolted for the Surface - Confidence gone!

[windapp]

I personally get anxiety from wearing an improperly fit hood. I recommend that you buy your own, and make sure that you buy a high-quality well fit hood. The Henderson H2 hood is an excellent option, but there are others. If your hood is truly the issue, you will do a lot better. Also when you get anxiety for any reason, you are best to signal your buddy, grab hold of something, relax, and close your eyes for a minute. The anxiety will subside. If it keeps coming back, abort the dive in a controlled way before full panic takes hold.

 

[CoasterFreak]

I personally cannot imagine doing my certification dives in a 7mil, gloves and hood. I did my cert dives in a 3 mil shorty. After doing a few fall/spring dives in the full get-up, I honestly understand why some of my other local diver friends swear off the cold water diving. I give you chops for trying it, and I suppose if you got certified wearing them then anything else would be a breeze, but I second others advising to get your cert dives done in a warmer environ and then practice colder and colder if you can, with another experienced (and patient) buddy.

 

[00wabbit]

Make sure your wetsuit and hood fit you properly too. When I did my openwater they had me in a wetsuit one size too small. Being new I thought wetsuits were supposed to be tight so I didn't know any better. Turns out on my second open water dive when we surfaced I had a mild panic because I couldn't catch my breath. I was wearing a 2pc farmer john and hood that zipped down the back and tucked into the suit. I couldn't get it off and I couldn't catch my breath. I had to get a divemaster to help me. Eventually I got the hood off and got hte top part of the farmer john unzipped and I was able to breath again. Turns out the suit was constricting my chest too much and I couldn't breathe deeply so I was taking short shallow breaths. I did the rest of the class with the top of the farmer john unzipped over my chest and the hood untucked. I was feeling really nervous about going back for the second day. I didn't want to have that feeling again.

It also seems like your intructors may not have been the best for you. I was in a class of 12 students. We had an instructor and 4 divemasters (i think) and I never heard them yelling at the students. We did breifings before the dive and then we all swam out together. Then we talked about what we were going to do again on the surface before descending. The divemasters kept quiet and let the instructor do the talking. It was all very professional and under control.

 

[milandro]

Reading some of these stories I realise how important is to get a one to one diving course, as I did. I got PADI open water certified while on holiday in Egypt. The course didn’t take any shortcuts and I had pool dives as well as easier beach dives wearing a full kit.

The only thing that got me anxious and a bit scared was diving from a jetty about 2 meters ( I am a bit uncomfortable with heights) high on the water level with quite a bit of surf.

As I got in I had trouble to catch a good breath rhythm and the air supply felt awfully limited (which of course was not). My instructor readily came to me, inflated some more my BCD so that I could comfortably bob in the water and could calm down and catch my breath.

I did that for a couple of minutes and then we comfortably descended along the wall of the house reef and got a marvellous dive where I saw plenty of fish including a small withe tip reef shark.

 

[Peter69_56]

Don't give up. I was just as freaked as you when I first started. Was in a pool and was told to be in waist deep and take mask off, using reg put head into the water. Yes the water runs right up your nose when you bend over and do this. Freaked me out totally. I was going to give up. Wife got geared up and went into 3 metres with instructor. I was not not happy, and wanting to give up. Saw my wife in the deep end so thought I better keep going. Went down and did mask removal (guess what with head in normal position no real water in nose).

Then dived into 12C water with poor fitting wetsuit and froze, but was then determined to complete it. Wife gave up as she was overweighted and cold (32lb weight). I completed it and she went on to complete hers with a more understanding instructor in warm water (28C).

Bought a 7 mm wetsuit and hood and it choked me so got the neck seal modified by adding material to reduce pressure on my throat. Works great now.

Don't give up, you will love it. We love our diving and would not stop.

Get a new instructor who understands, it makes a huge difference. A shop owner said to me that women in general wont like diving in cold water (I know my wife doesn't to this day), maybe a woman thing. But put her into warm water and she loves it and is like a fish.

You just need good instruction, understanding staff, and time to find yourself.

 

[scubajo007]

I have done quite some courses and yes there are (quite)some instructors you do not feel comfortable with.
I suggest you do it as a referral, pool training and theori where you you are and then go somewhere nice tropic water and do the open water dives. Contact different dive resorts, and tell them you want your own instructor. Select resort based on the answers you get. And get your own gear and try it out in confined water before going into the sea, remember to tell the potential dive operations that's what you want.
Ohh, I bolted from 10ft in confined water when I did my OW, Im sure a lot others have bolted as well