Problems on second Certfication Day

[rixxir]

I have no idea what happened. I started my certification course Friday night, did all the bookwork and went to the pool on Saturday for the first day of certification. We were in 14' of water at the pool and I was having a blast. I was able to clear my mask, do all the buddy drills, equalize, buoyancy drills and everything went fine. I was down without a surface for nearly 2 hours. I was using the regs that I purchased, Oceanic Delta4/alpha 8 octo and a shop loaner BC. At the end of the session I was slightly congested in my right nostril......no big deal. An hour later, no congestion. Day 2, Sunday, Did my first back roll into the pool, no problem, came up, went to snorkel, still no problem, the instructor asked us to hold on to the side of the pool and remove our masks. We were to breathe with face in the water, no mask and on regulator. I had the hardest time. Not even a problem on saturday. I felt constricted. The difference in the days....... I had on the new Oceanic Back inflate BC that I purchased, everything else was the same. We then donned masks and swam out to the shallow end for more repeat drills. I felt like I was going to run out of there and never return. I couldnt get a deep breath of air, felt constricted, panicky, and claustrophobic. There was one other difference. I was wearing a tight rash guard?????? The next step was to do the buddy rescue at the bottom of the 14' pool. I swam down to about 8' and my head felt like it was going to explode at the base of my neck in the back.. I repeated the attempt twice but still had the pressure. I was able to equalize my ears and still had the pain. WTF? What happened? I was told by my instructor to lose the Back Inflate, which I did. I was cleared to go on to my check out dives next week since I proved proficient on day 1 and completed most of the refresher stuff on Sunday. I don't know if I want to do this now.....Any ideas, why the sudden change in events. Saturday I felt as though I belonged on the bottom.......Not now. One more thing, I believe part of the anxiety came from the BC, as I felt like I worked the entire time to stay afloat, my face wanted to tilt into the water, which I expected, but not that bad.

[USVet96]

Not really sure why your having the issues you say. IMO it's not the BC. It's all to easy to "blame" that but it sounds like something more fundamental and basic, like mental. For some reason anxiety seems to be taking over in your head. If day 1 in the pool was OK, then there is NO reason why day 2 should have been any different.

Just my 2 cents

[adurso]

Your tight rash guard may be at fault, the constriction has been known to cause problems....

[Quero]

+1 for the tight rash guard. Also the straps of your back-inflate BCD may be placed differently than on the rental you were comfortable in, so that when you tighten them they may bind around your chest, making it hard to fully inflate your lungs. If you are too restricted around the torso and can't get a full breath of air, you can't really relax, and then all the task-loading involved in learning scuba diving can become more than you are able to cope with.

If I were you, I'd NOT do the checkout dives until I had a chance to get a private pool session going just to make sure that my head was in the right place. If you have any hesitation at all, you should feel free to postpone your open water dives.

[g1138]

The no mask swim may have shook you up enough to have a bad day. With your excited state it probably flustered you quite a bit. Don't think about it too much. Just try to breath normal slow breaths and take everything in stride. If you start to think too much about worrying you'll just dig yourself into a deeper hole. Just focus on the present and let it out of your mind.

The tight rash guard and BC shoulder straps probably didn't help the situation. I would continue wearing them though and loosening your straps a bit. Try to get used to it before you don a wetsuit.

Good luck.

[rixxir]

+1 for the tight rash guard. Also the straps of your back-inflate BCD may be placed differently than on the rental you were comfortable in, so that when you tighten them they may bind around your chest, making it hard to fully inflate your lungs. If you are too restricted around the torso and can't get a full breath of air, you can't really relax, and then all the task-loading involved in learning scuba diving can become more than you are able to cope with.

If I were you, I'd NOT do the checkout dives until I had a chance to get a private pool session going just to make sure that my head was in the right place. If you have any hesitation at all, you should feel free to postpone your open water dives.

I do have hesitation and I thank you for the advise. I will look at a private session, my open water is scheduled as a beach dive in Venice, Fl and my second is a boat dive to 60'.

[martinskarin]

No mask can be terrible if one let the bubbles go in the nose, did you do thins? I hated it and wanted to abort until I figured out that I should look down (what the instructor told me before but I forgot...) and let the bubbles pass over my neck instead of into my nose =)

Porly fitting equipment does not make things better, it is a strange enviroment from he beginning to be in so try and find back to the comfortable setup you had in the first dive, then gradually change to the new stuff.

[TSandM]

Everything sounds as though something was interfering with you breathing freely. You were using the same regulator, right? Because regulators that are not properly adusted can do this. Does the new BC have a cummerbund, and did you have it really tight? Back-inflate BCs are less prone to interfere with breathing, because they don't wrap around the diver, and don't get tighter when inflated, so that would be odd. You did say that the BC was pushing your face into the water . . . if this is happening, then it's not adjusted properly, doesn't fit, you are overweighted, or you have your weights in entirely the wrong place.

If I were you, I would go to your instructor and tell him that there was a huge difference between the two pool sessions, and ask for some private time to sort out what went wrong. You should NOT go in the open water until this is resolved; NOTHING gets better in the ocean (except maybe seasickness).

[LBHeyman]

You need to give not give up! You will get comfortable in the water and then all will be good!

[stangd1909]

You need to man up and not give up! :mooner:

AGREED!!


Just keep working at it man, you'll get it. Your dive instructor will take care of you and get you through this! We need our new dive partner to be ready for our Keys trip!