Yayyy I'm finally certified!!

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silvernotch

Contributor
Messages
231
Reaction score
20
Location
SW NJ
# of dives
25 - 49
but not without some problems

first of all. EVERYTHING I had problems doing in the pool, weren't problems at all in open water. my buoyancy was a huge problem in the pool and my instructors told me a few times over the weekend how great I had been in the open water. It really was like night and day.

So a break down of the dives

we dove here Dutch Springs 3 dives saturday, 3 dives sunday (2 of those dives are for our AOW)

so the one thing that hasn't changed is my ears SUCK. I didn't take anything for dive 1 and it took me probably 5-10 mins to get down to 30ft. so I finally get down and we get on the platform to do some basic skills. there's 4 in the class and 2 instructors and 1 assistant. They motion at me to do a reg removal and recover so I take the reg out, throw it behind me and all of a sudden I hear a TON of noise. I grab the reg and holy crap, it's free-flowing. I'm still able to breathe off of it and panic for like 1/2 a second. before I can think to do it my instructor grabs my octo and I take like 2 breaths off of it before the 2nd instructor comes over and gives me his octo and we buddy breathe while they're behind me trying to fix it. So they shut my tank off, turned it back on and the reg was fine. once we ascended they told me since the water temp was around 46 degrees I probably had a hot breath and when I threw the reg out into the cold water it formed some ice that set the reg off. Either way it kind of unnerved me but they said I did a great job not panicking.

about an hour before dive 2 I took a Claritan D and that helped my ears some but they still didn't clear as easily as I would have liked. we do some touring of the quarry and come back up for a lunch SI.

so during lunch they decide to grab some pizzas for us. I was STARVING so I had like 2 slices and a couple handfuls of random stuff laying around. so about an hour later we head in for our last dive and as soon as we're about to descend my chest feels tight but I don't really think anything about it and figured it may just be nerves. but the whole time I'm down I feel like I can't breathe all the way and it SUCKS. So we go to do a CESA and I feel like I can't get enough air so almost to the surface I suck in another breath. I told the guy I wanted to do the CESA tomorrow because I feel like I couldn't breathe right. Here I realized it was stupid indigestion but it literally felt like a huge ball underneath my lungs. after we logged our dives I really felt like I wanted to throw up but I got hiccups for an hour instead :shakehead: Let's just say Sunday I stayed away from that crap but ate Tums like they were going out of business just to be safe.

Sunday was FREEZING. air temp of about 50, pouring rain, bottom temp about 43. we had 7mil suits, gloves, and hoods on but it was still uncomfortable. 1st dive on Sunday I was taking my good old time descending as usual and I kept getting a TON of water in my mask and it was frustrating me, all of a sudden I had a full mask flood. Here the strap on the back of my mask came up off the hood. I was so pissed off and frustrated I must have sucked down a few hundred psi :lol2:

rest of the dives went off without a hitch. We did a really great dive of the WWII plane they submerged in about 65 feet. My fin hit the propeller by accident but it was great to actually do some legit diving instead of doing skills.

so sat and sun I felt like I had water in my ears. I kinda let it go but yesterday at work I was feeling some discomfort in my right ear along with the water so I went to the doctors. She said I had water in my middle ear but no busted ear drum. She said there was a lot of redness around my ear drum so she gave me some antibiotic ear drops and told me to take some more Claritin D/Aleve D and some Benadryl to dry up the moisture and I should be good to go. No diving for 3 weeks though :(

so all in all I'm happy but I'm still nervous especially after all the dumb crap that happened this weekend. Our next dives will be deep dive, and 2 others. I'm a little nervous about the deep dive especially since I breached one time doing a 3min safety stop. It's not that easy to stay down once you've gotten that close to the surface :lol2: I just want lots of practice in the water. and I refuse to do any cold diving for a LONG time. I can't wait to hop in the 80 degree water in Montserrat in a month :cool2:
 
Like bloody bewdy mate. Andrea Doria for You.
 
Congratulations on getting certified!!

I think we all had something or many somethings go a little bit wrong on our first dives. Sounds like you had a great time! That's awesome.

:cool3:
 
Congrats on your OW cert but why are you doing AOW without even getting a chance to practice your OW skills? If you breached on a safety stop I would not let you start AOW. This is the stuff that just pisses me off. How long were your dives and what "AOW" dives did you do? And did you learn new skills on them or were they just a "taste" of " advanced" dives?
 
Congrats on your OW cert but why are you doing AOW without even getting a chance to practice your OW skills? If you breached on a safety stop I would not let you start AOW. This is the stuff that just pisses me off. How long were your dives and what "AOW" dives did you do? And did you learn new skills on them or were they just a "taste" of " advanced" dives?

we did the Peak Performance Buoyancy dive and Wreck dive. we'll be going over more skills and classroom work before we go back in for the 3 other dives. and I breached on the first safety stop I did. We did 2 more after that and I had no issues.

and I talked to a few other divers I know (outside the shop) and it seems fairly common to do OW and follow with AOW shortly thereafter :idk:
 
we did the Peak Performance Buoyancy dive and Wreck dive. we'll be going over more skills and classroom work before we go back in for the 3 other dives. and I breached on the first safety stop I did. We did 2 more after that and I had no issues.

and I talked to a few other divers I know (outside the shop) and it seems fairly common to do OW and follow with AOW shortly thereafter :idk:

Like common sense.
 
we did the Peak Performance Buoyancy dive and Wreck dive. we'll be going over more skills and classroom work before we go back in for the 3 other dives. and I breached on the first safety stop I did. We did 2 more after that and I had no issues.

and I talked to a few other divers I know (outside the shop) and it seems fairly common to do OW and follow with AOW shortly thereafter :idk:

It is common around here also. Unfortunately.
 
silvernotch, congratulations on your certification. I know you had problems at the beginning, and I can't remember whether anybody gave you the links on the ear video and other websites with information about equalizing techniques. If not, say so, and I will put them up.

A lot of people go directly into AOW, and in fact, the program is really pretty much designed for people to do either immediately or in very short order. The problem really is that deep dive, because new divers often really don't have the buoyancy skills to be diving that deep (although it is not the deep portion of the dive that causes problems, it's the ascent!) Hopefully, your instructor will execute that dive so that a) your bottom time at depth is brief, and b) you have some kind of visual reference on the way up, whether that's the bottom contour or an ascent line you can grab if you have to.

Jim, there are two ways to look at it: Teach an AOW class that is really advanced, and advise people to wait to take it until they have some experience (as NW Grateful Diver used to do) or teach an AOW class that's really OW2, and have people take it immediately. I don't have a problem with the second approach, but the deep dive is pushing it.
 
silvernotch, Congratulations on your certification, and bravo for your perseverance. Many people would have quit if faced with what you experienced. You stuck it out and will become a fine diver. Often it is problems that make us better divers. Well done. Be proud of what you've accomplished.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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