When did you feel comfortable diving?

[Laurie S.]

I felt comfortable from dive seven on. The only reason I wasn't comfortable prior to that was that the Air2 hose hadn't been properly installed on my BCD by the diveshop and so it constantly leaked air. It made it much harder to learn buoyancy control. My seventh dive was the first away from my instructors, etc., and it was in Costa Maya while on a cruise. I let the DM know that there had been a problem with the leakage, but that the problem had supposedly been fixed. I was so nervous because I wasn't in my comfort zone being with new people, I had to do a backroll for the first time, and it was my first drift dive. I did the backroll perfectly, hit the water, and adjusted the buoyancy and felt serene and thrilled to death as I looked at the incredible visibility. It's been that way for almost four years now.

 

[mdb]

I recall feeling relaxed and comfortable after about 14-15 dives. I started diving every weekend in the kelp beds off San Diego and made about
300 dives my first year certified. Lucky to be in such a good place for beach and boat diving.

 

[Pearlman]

From the 9th dive I was pretty set. I remember not liking the seawater in my nose from a not properly adjusted mask or the mask removal drill at the bottom until then... or the taste of saltwater deep into the gut... now I don't let it happen that much. I still end up regurgitating recently eaten food now and then.

Sent from my GT-N7000

 

[Lorenzoid]

I got PADI OW certified in the relatively cold and murky waters of Southern California, but my first dive after that was in Australia in pristine tropical conditions. I felt comfortable there in 30 feet of bathtub-clear warm water, but there is no way I would have dived without an instructor back in SoCal at that point. I was a once-a-year diver for five years or so after that until I started ramping it up, took AOW and then Rescue. It was only after taking Rescue (with maybe 50 dives under my belt) that I actually felt comfortable diving.

 

[oldschoolto]

Day one.... But I was 12 and had no fear.... Now that doesn't mean I never got out of the water and said to myself.... Don't want to do that again..

 

[herbdb]

I have never felt anxiety diving, but I have felt frustration particularly with my buoyancy in the early days of cold water diving. I loved it from the first breath and am constantly working to improve my skills.

Before retirement I was a professional pilot for 37 years. Evaluating pilots is a lot like evaluating divers, lots of people can do it, but only a few can do it really well. I want to be one that can.

 

[spectrum]

So ...

1. What was your first dive like?
2. How many dives did it take to get comfortable?
3. When did you feel like a "real" diver?

1) It was all that I hoped and expected. We had already been extensively skin-diving the area so to some extent it was familiar territory. Being abe to stay down and wander the bottom was a whole new game though.

2) About 10 minutes into the 1st pool session. Most of the gear, oral breathing with a wet face were old school from skin diving, just adding a BC, regulator and cylinder were no big deal.

3) I do remember a specific time when I felt I had a real firm grasp of the basics even though there was plenty of learning to go. If I remember right it was at 50 dives.

Pete

 

[flots am]

3. When did you feel like a "real" diver?

1. What was your first dive like?
Cozumel. Got dropped on Santa Rosa Wall. The BC inflator hose split at one of the handy perforations letting the air out of the BC. Because my instructor was a pain in the butt about proper weighting, I didn't lose much air and didn't become very negative. I didn't realize that I could have just continued the dive since "nothing special" happened when I lost the air, but I thumbed the dive and went back to the boat.

2. How many dives did it take to get comfortable?
"Comfortable" is location dependent. I have a ton of dives in the local lakes and rivers and am comfortable enough that if the boat sank, I'd only be annoyed, not freaked out. It probably took 150-200 dives to get that way. I rarely do any warm water diving, and am very seldom "comfortable" on "guided" dives.

3. When did you feel like a "real" diver?
Still waiting on that one. One of the guys I sometimes dive with has a whole shelf full of log books and makes me look like I was just certified. I'm reasonably certain that he simple wills the water to move him in the desired direction.

flots.

edit: "Comfortable" seems to change in hindsight. I thought I was comfortable on my first dive, and at the time, probably was, although it was because I was clueless. I just followed my training and everything was fine.

Only later on did I realize what kind of a disaster that could have been if I'd had insufficient training or ignored it. As I got better, I was still "comfortable" and did more demanding dives. Again, things happened that I didn't fully understand at the time, but I followed my training, and they worked out well too.

Now, after even more training and more diving, I realize how badly things could have gone, but at the time I was still "comfortable".

Knowledge of what can happen dramatically reduces my comfort level on tropical-vacation-cruise-ship dives, since they're mostly populated with people who haven't been in the water since last year or maybe a year or two before that. I have no concerns keeping myself safe, but seeing people who I know are just a small failure away from panic keeps my anxiety level up quite a bit higher than I'd like.

 

[The_Aviator_1]

I started out very young, I would almost argue too young, but the age requirements for junior diver are an entirely different topic. I started to get comfortable when I could easily manipulate the gear on the surface without assistance or difficulty. I would say it took around 2 or 3 years and about 50 dives in various conditions.

 

[AaronRiot]

1. Incredible. I could finally stay under -- no more of the freediving I'd been doing since I was a kid at the cottage.

2. Pretty much right away, it was a natural progression for me.

3. Always. I grew up spending summers in cottage country on the lake... I spent more time under the water than swimming at the surface. When I finally donned SCUBA gear it was more of a "yes! I can finally stay down here!" feeling I guess.

Sidenote: I like that I am constantly learning, fine tuning and building my confidence, situational awareness, and a healthy respect for the deep. There have been a few key steps that felt like jumps for me..

Getting the buoyancy down and using my breathing to do so.
Learning to dive in proper trim.
Learning to manage my breathing.
Learning what it felt like to recover after heavy breathing/workload.
First dive to 100ft.
First solo dive.
First solo dive at night (one of my fav dives to date).
Learning how I would react when things don't go as planned.