Underlying Fears

[Ghetto Diver]

For me it's more disorienting that a fear-fest. Hopefully, I have a line to guide up or down to mitigate. When it gets bad, I will call the dive.
Sometimes, you need to listen to your 'spidey' side. Not too long ago on a local solo shore dive with 8' vis my gut told me something was going to go down. Not too long after, a game of chicken with a nurse. We both went 'whoaa', I banked left, he the other. Cool encounter
Not 10 minutes later wallowing in the surge and my head on a swivel, a fair sized black tip rolled in from my 6. I saw it as it materialized from the murk. It got between me and the reef and stopped beside me, then curiously rolled toward me. I literally shouted 'wtf' and pushed it away with my dive flag spool and it swam ahead of me, po'ed. Turned around again, toward me, and then I shouted 'gtfo' and I motioned with the spool again and it disappeared into the murk.
YMMV

 

[The Chairman]

First question is, is this a natural fear that just needs overcome by continued diving in the low vis.

By natural, I guess you mean atavistic. Yes, it probably is, but more importantly: it's your fear. Diving is all about limits. We always monitor the limits of time, depth and gas, but there are other limits as well. Knowledge, skills, conditions, experience, as well as fears and phobias are just as important to consider by every diver. Quite often, fears are your minds way of telling you that you're exceeding these limits. You need to figure out the real source of your fear in that regard. Could it be that your buoyancy is not spot on? I've scuba dove in waters that were over a thousand feet deep, yet I didn't descend deeper than the limit I had set before the dive. It's not that I have nerves of steel, but I enjoy the competence and subsequently the confidence to easily maintain a 1 ft window on my buoyancy. With a bit of care, that window decreases to scant inches.

That didn't happen overnight nor did it happen by just accepting my fears as normal. I have systematically approached and evaluated all of my limits in the hopes of extending them. Some were a function of my skill set, comfort and even knowledge. Others are clearly immutable and I have no desire to exceed them. There's nothing down there worth dying for. Know and dive your limits. Listen to that small voice. Remember you can call a dive at any time, for any reason with no questions asked and no repercussions. Work slowly through those fears. There is no rush.

 

[Bob DBF]

The viz can be disconcerting, watch your breathing pattern, if you start breathing shallow and retaining CO2 it can really send you down a rathole. I can see this being a factor in in the apprehension, assuming one is not claustrophobic or afraid of the dark. At 100' or so this can start you into a dark nark.

I feel good when I know the bottom is within a reasonable depth (for me around 100', not that i have been that deep by far but some reason that seems a good choice for my brain to latch onto) but anything much deeper my head thinks is the abyss. Then the fear of uncontrolled descent kicks in (to many articles on the web).

I believe it is not an unreasonable fear for a new diver to need a hard bottom at a reasonable depth. Assuming you have the gas, having a place to stop, deal with the issue, and recover is a smart idea. When I started, 100' was past my limit, as I had a small tank. With experience, knowledge and confidence in your equipment and skills, your limits will change. The viz is one issue, but you shouldn't necessarily feel better if you can see the bottom, your limitations will be the same.


Bob
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I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[The Chairman]

I believe it is not an unreasonable fear for a new diver

Reasonable and unreasonable are great ways to describe fears, Bob. That's the real difference between simple concerns and disabling phobias. While panic has it's limited uses on land, underwater it's often fatal. It's up to us to mitigate our concerns, fears and phobias in order to avoid panic. That could be anything from getting the right or remedial training, slowly gaining experience or to actually calling the dive or series of dives.

 

[tbone1004]

I have an irrational fear of catfish, don't know why, hate zero vis exits from caves that I know have catfish in them. Will I ever get over it? Highly unlikely, but I have learned how to tolerate it, my buddy goes in front ;-) if victorzamora comes into this thread, he will vouch for that

 

[Wilderness Medic]

For me, most of the time low vis is more comfortable. Looking around for the landlord does no good because you can't see. In high vis I find myself looking over my shoulder more.

 

[Storker]

I have dived so much in zero to low vis that it really does not bother me much

Yup, it's all about getting used to it.

I live in an area of the world where the water is naturally quite murky, particularly in the summertime. Normal summer vis is 5-8m, sometimes less. Luckily it often clears up a little at depth, though. When I took my OW, we had pretty average (for the region) vis, so I believed that this was just the way things were supposed to be (just like I did about using a drysuit, since we certified dry). Just before Christmas I had the worst vis I've ever experienced; in the upper layers I could literally hardly see my hand in front of me. It didn't stress me out at all, on the contrary. I was quite fascinated about the feeling of dropping through the murk, only the particles passing by upwards and the increasing squeeze of my suit telling me I was descending.

On the other hand, I've seen a diver who certified in tropical water freaking out totally from a surface layer vis of some 4-5m and doing a pretty decent Polaris missile impersonation to get back to the surface. I was fairly inexperienced then, and I sincerely didn't understand what the problem was. Conditions weren't particularly worse than normal, were they?

 

[Bob DBF]

While panic has it's limited uses on land, underwater it's often fatal. It's up to us to mitigate our concerns, fears and phobias in order to avoid panic. That could be anything from getting the right or remedial training, slowly gaining experience or to actually calling the dive or series of dives.

From what I have seen and experienced, panic, when not driven by irrational fear, seems to happen when one is in a bad situation and runs out of options and starts looking at the ultimate outcome. I feel the trick is to have a lot of options available, and don't dive to far from your skill set. Trying too much too soon may put you in a spot from which you can not return.

A blast from the past from Thalassamania, the "cone of safety".

I have always modeled safety as a "cone" in the water that is point down. As long as you are inside the cone you're OK, when you start to drift outside of it you are in trouble and when you are completely outside of it you are not going to make it. Skill, as transmitted through training as well as experience both teaches you how to stay, not just inside, but in the center of the cone so that even as you go deeper and the circle scribed by the intersection of the plane of your depth and the cone narrows, you are still close to the middle. Panic results in the almost chaotic jump from inside the cone to somewhere outside the cone with little or no frame of reference as to how to get back. This is sometimes the result of a single big event, but is more often the result of a series of small displacements, each one of which multiplies the one(s) that came before. What is the difference between say Parker Turner struggling to get to the opening till he passes out and the new diver clawing his way to an embolism because his valve was not open all the way? I don't really know ... some would say that it is a lack of imagination while others would say that it is strength of will. If I had to guess I say that lack of panic comes from the habituation of good habits that jump you back into the cone, almost without concern as to where you were displaced to. Thinking slow, taking a deep breath and remembering that even if all your gear has failed you've got four minutes or so (rather a long time) to solve your issues can go a long way.

Bob
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That's my point, people, by and large, are not taught that diving can be deadly, they are taught how safe it is, and they are not equipped with the skills, taught and trained to the level required to be useful in an emergency.

I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[Troyscolwell]

Very awesome replies from everyone. I know it's not a fight or flight issue for me. Far as I could tell, thanks to my instructor and the guide line, I kept my normal breathing pattern. Tried to copy his kick so I didn't stir up the silt on the way down the bluffs. After reading the comments I now will wait for the first dive of the season and see how I do since I have dove the areas before.

You all are quite informative and make a noob not feel a fool for asking questions.

Troy

 

[Storker]

A blast from the past from Thalassamania, the "cone of safety".

Looks pretty similar to BSAC's Incident Pit concept.