My daughter(12) and I just finished the discover scuba class we took to make sure that we're comfortable breathing underwater. It was the two of us and another woman. It went great, so we're going to sign up for private OW classes.
We started with some poolside discussion covering things I read about here; like don't stop breathing and what can happen if you do, some hand signals, and then went over the gear - things like what's what and which buttons mean what on the BCD.
Then we got in the pool, put on the gear and had a discussion on the reg and putting it back into your mouth after it's full of water, then we did some skills:
1.)remove your reg, keep blowing out and then put it back in
2.)"lose" your reg, tilt to the side, hand sweep and put it back in
3.)half flood your mask and clear it
All of it went really well. My daughter stood up once when she did the "lose" your reg because she didn't find it fast enough for her comfort - even though the instructor was almost pushing his reg into her mouth. She got it together though and went on comfortably - accomplishing it twice. She also got a little freaked the first time she flooded her mask - she completely flooded it and stood up. Again, she recovered quickly and accomplished it twice. She actually did better than the other woman. I had no problems except I'm sure I used a lot of air to clear my mask - I blew some big bubbles!!!
Then we checked our weights / buoyancy. I floated with my head just out of water with no air in my BCD and breath out and then sank when I exhaled. Then we went on a small cruise in the shallow end and came up for a discussion on how everyone felt and equalizing out ears.
We then went out on a deep end cruise and played catch with a torpedo. I was amazed at how much I could change my buoyancy with deep breaths in or out. I was also pretty foot heavy - not that I was expecting to have good trim. LOL! After that we did some cruising through hula hoops. Again, the biggest thing for me was controlling my breathing so I didn't go too far up or down - mostly up.
After that the other woman decided to go home because we covered the basic class and she had her 14 y/o daughter watching her other kids. We wanted to ekpp playing so the instructor had my daughter and I practice staying close to each other as we cruised around and played some more torpedo games.
I was thrilled to be able to experience what I've been reading about here. The only down side was that I found out how disgusting the floor of the pool is freakin' disgusting!
Soon we'll buy some equipment and then start our OW class.
We started with some poolside discussion covering things I read about here; like don't stop breathing and what can happen if you do, some hand signals, and then went over the gear - things like what's what and which buttons mean what on the BCD.
Then we got in the pool, put on the gear and had a discussion on the reg and putting it back into your mouth after it's full of water, then we did some skills:
1.)remove your reg, keep blowing out and then put it back in
2.)"lose" your reg, tilt to the side, hand sweep and put it back in
3.)half flood your mask and clear it
All of it went really well. My daughter stood up once when she did the "lose" your reg because she didn't find it fast enough for her comfort - even though the instructor was almost pushing his reg into her mouth. She got it together though and went on comfortably - accomplishing it twice. She also got a little freaked the first time she flooded her mask - she completely flooded it and stood up. Again, she recovered quickly and accomplished it twice. She actually did better than the other woman. I had no problems except I'm sure I used a lot of air to clear my mask - I blew some big bubbles!!!
Then we checked our weights / buoyancy. I floated with my head just out of water with no air in my BCD and breath out and then sank when I exhaled. Then we went on a small cruise in the shallow end and came up for a discussion on how everyone felt and equalizing out ears.
We then went out on a deep end cruise and played catch with a torpedo. I was amazed at how much I could change my buoyancy with deep breaths in or out. I was also pretty foot heavy - not that I was expecting to have good trim. LOL! After that we did some cruising through hula hoops. Again, the biggest thing for me was controlling my breathing so I didn't go too far up or down - mostly up.
After that the other woman decided to go home because we covered the basic class and she had her 14 y/o daughter watching her other kids. We wanted to ekpp playing so the instructor had my daughter and I practice staying close to each other as we cruised around and played some more torpedo games.
I was thrilled to be able to experience what I've been reading about here. The only down side was that I found out how disgusting the floor of the pool is freakin' disgusting!
Soon we'll buy some equipment and then start our OW class.
Last edited:
). 
