Hi Everyone,
The other day I had my first diving experience, and I had some questions that I wanted to ask. I think I may have witnessed a very bad safety lapse, but I'm not sure.
I'm at a vacation spot, and I decided I wanted to try diving, so I signed up for a "discover SCUBA" session at a shop that had excellent reviews everywhere I looked. When we got into the pool I freaked out when I saw the bubbles and I started hyperventilating. I felt like I wasn't getting enough air and had to get out. After a couple more of those, I decided to skip it and let the instructor deal with the other three students. After they were done, the instructor had a nice talk with me and told me that I should at least try once more with the skills, and that if I didn't like it after that I could quit if I wanted to. I did it, felt much better, and could easily do all the skills. For some reason, the buoyancy skill came very easily to me (and I had no problems with buoyancy at all in the open water dives). After that, the instructor talked to me again and told me that the open water dives would be much easier than this, and that if I was going to have troubles it would be near the surface and that she would be there for me all the time. She was absolutely right, and the first dive was amazing--except for the fact that I inadvertently touched a fire coral.
The problem came with the second dive. It began great--we even saw a bull shark. But then, about half an hour into the dive I see the instructor graving another student and giving us the thumbs up. We want up without stopping at 15 feet at all (which we did in the first dive). After we surfaced, I saw that the instructor and the photographer were exchanging looks and trying to talk to each other. The student was asking whether she had breathed too hard, so I asked how much air she had left: 40 (I don't remember the units--is it psi or bar?). All the rest of us had more than 100. From what I gathered afterwards, the crew in the boat did not change the air tube appropriately, of perhaps at all.
I realized that this was a problem with the other student as much as with the crew and with the instructor--I checked how much air I had before getting into the water. But my questions are: was this dangerous? And how bad is it that we skipped the safety stop?
The other day I had my first diving experience, and I had some questions that I wanted to ask. I think I may have witnessed a very bad safety lapse, but I'm not sure.
I'm at a vacation spot, and I decided I wanted to try diving, so I signed up for a "discover SCUBA" session at a shop that had excellent reviews everywhere I looked. When we got into the pool I freaked out when I saw the bubbles and I started hyperventilating. I felt like I wasn't getting enough air and had to get out. After a couple more of those, I decided to skip it and let the instructor deal with the other three students. After they were done, the instructor had a nice talk with me and told me that I should at least try once more with the skills, and that if I didn't like it after that I could quit if I wanted to. I did it, felt much better, and could easily do all the skills. For some reason, the buoyancy skill came very easily to me (and I had no problems with buoyancy at all in the open water dives). After that, the instructor talked to me again and told me that the open water dives would be much easier than this, and that if I was going to have troubles it would be near the surface and that she would be there for me all the time. She was absolutely right, and the first dive was amazing--except for the fact that I inadvertently touched a fire coral.
The problem came with the second dive. It began great--we even saw a bull shark. But then, about half an hour into the dive I see the instructor graving another student and giving us the thumbs up. We want up without stopping at 15 feet at all (which we did in the first dive). After we surfaced, I saw that the instructor and the photographer were exchanging looks and trying to talk to each other. The student was asking whether she had breathed too hard, so I asked how much air she had left: 40 (I don't remember the units--is it psi or bar?). All the rest of us had more than 100. From what I gathered afterwards, the crew in the boat did not change the air tube appropriately, of perhaps at all.
I realized that this was a problem with the other student as much as with the crew and with the instructor--I checked how much air I had before getting into the water. But my questions are: was this dangerous? And how bad is it that we skipped the safety stop?
