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.