Certified and Dangerous. Where do we go from here?

[James O' Mahony]

Hi, if you have a local diveshop you should enquire there about diving with some experienced divers. I'm a divemaster but regularly take out inexperienced divers for my local diveshop. Once you gain some experience and get comfortable the big scarey mystery of diving will seem a whole lot less.

 

[BrianKon]

referrals are so hard, some get it and some don't. The e-learning thing isn't for everyone. many times the student does not interact with the instructor as it is set-up to do. There are allot of circumstance brought up in a class, that just cannot all be covered during check-outs. If i have time i will always try to call a referring instructor to get a gauge on the student. If not, I do an interview with the student to answer any question before I even show them gear. One bad experience certainly can ruin it for folks, but I have found those folks really didn't want to dive in the first place, and may have done it for other reasons. I have seen diver quite because their mask leaked! just an excuse really.

 

[clay357]

It is a little funny, but yes it was very comfortable last night.

Thanks everyone for your help, but it looks like our scuba ambitions (and likely marriage) are dead in the water (pun intended). I don't even think I'll even bother picking up the C-cards from the dive shop when they arrive.

After 20 years of marriage and oly a few months of diving, which by the way I love and would not want to give up, I would not ever let diving come between my wife and I. Diving is an unbelievable experience that I would want for everyone, but it still does not compare to a life shared!

 

[Doc Harry]

We felt "certified and dangerous" after we became OW divers. We went down to the Florida Keys and continued straight into AOW for more supervised training and diving. I highly recommend going down that path. It won't make you an "advanced" diver, but you will be "certified and no longer dangerous."

 

[ScooterTDI]

I thought I post an update for some closure to this thread.

We went to the pool by ourselves several times after certification to work on my wifes kicking technique and it improved greatly. Something finally clicked and now she doesn't have to think too much about it.

We wanted to do some more pool dives, but the dive shop ended up not allowing us to tag along after we had been certified. They said they only allow students who have complete confined water training, but are not yet OW certified to go to the pool for independent practice. I am more than a little annoyed by this because we really shouldn't have even been certified in the first place.

We talked to another shop that would less us tag along to the pool, but they do all of their confined water training in a 5 ft. deep pool which seems pretty useless. If I remember correctly, many of the skills must be completed in water too deep to stand in, so I have no idea how they get away with using that facility.

We ended up going back to the quarry by ourselves for a couple dives last weekend and actually had fun this time. We kept it simple and mostly just practiced establishing neutral buouancy and swimming around the training platforms (15 and 30 ft). This experience gave us a lot of confidence and we will continue learning to dive, but definitely with a different instructor/dive shop when we feel we are ready for AOW. I think our way forward will be to continue diving, but simply stay well within the bounds of what we feel comfortable doing. Right now that may only be circling training platforms between 15 and 30 ft., but we will eventually progress at our own pace.

While waiting on the surface for an OW class to leave a platform, we saw our first "emergency". A geyser started coming up from the training platform from a free-flow. We assumed that it was part of the training, but then a student pops up hacking up a ton of water followed by an instructor that is beating on the students regulator to try to stop the free flow. The student was towed to shore and looked pretty disoriented, but was apparently OK.

 

[TSandM]

Well, I'm glad you guys stuck with it (and stayed together!). And no matter what certification you get, starting small and gradually expanding your diving challenges is a good way to approach things.

Hope you guys can get to somewhere to use these skills you are building sometime soon.

 

[freewillie]

Very glad to hear that everything is getting better, especially the marriage. The scuba is second. I've been married almost 15 years, it's a great institution when it works well. Although my wife doesn't scuba I'm hoping the kids will. If not, how can you not enjoy yourself on vacation anyways.

I did my very first open water dive after certification with a local scuba club. The morning was very foggy. Not only was I diving with complete strangers, by the time we swam out to the drop down point about 400-500 feet offshore it is so foggy I can's see the shore anymore. I'm starting to panick a little. It briefly crossed my my to call the dive, ditch my weights a the surface, and just swim back by myself. I was able to get a hold of my emotions, and by the time we got underwater I calmed down. Rest fo the dive went well. After that, I feel confident I can actually dive without my instructor next to me. Hope you do too.

Good luck in both the scuba and marriage.

 

[Roko]

Does your wife want to dive or, like many significant others, is she doing it because you want to?

If the former, I'd suggest doing extensive research online (regional forums) to find a well qualified highly rated instructor with whom to have her repeat the confined and open water portions of the course (I'm assuming the academics are in order).

If the latter, recognize that diving isn't for everyone and maybe that includes your wife. Find a buddy and go diving - it seems you did well in a particularly stressful situation. A mentor can help you work on your weighting and balance (the root of your sculling problem).

ScooterTDI, I didn't see you answer this question, and to be honest you don't have to answer it publicly on the forum, but I think it is absolutely, 100% a question you and your wife need to answer together.

Glad to see you're still sticking with diving. It can suck at first, especially if you're not in "great" location for diving, but it gets better as you get more comfortable in the water!

 

[ramasule]

I am happy that you recognized that you were not a strong diver, and put int he time and effort to correct it. It sounds like your dive shops are kinda crappy where you are at. I'm way up north in Canada and each dive shop here has an open pool night where 20bucks will get you pool session / equipment rental. I would also recommend going somewhere nice / warm / good vis. It takes away a lot of the environmental stress and lets one focus on diving tasks first and foremost. I was fortunate enough to get a good dive shop for my e-learning / pool sessions and a good one when I did my OW referral. My instructor explained everything on land to my wife and I before going in the water, took us out to a sheltered cay where they do their OW course and assessed us before we even got on the boat to do dive #1.
I wish you good luck and hopefully will get to dive with you one day,
Ram

 

[Den7]

...While waiting on the surface for an OW class to leave a platform, we saw our first "emergency". A geyser started coming up from the training platform from a free-flow. We assumed that it was part of the training, but then a student pops up hacking up a ton of water followed by an instructor that is beating on the students regulator to try to stop the free flow. The student was towed to shore and looked pretty disoriented, but was apparently OK.

I really laughed my a** off trying to imagine your instructor beating on the student's regulator in order to prevent the free-flow. Literally he had to be punching this poor student and this would be called boxing, not diving lol. Was the student fighting back by any chances? You should definitely change your instructor who does not seem to see the difference between boxing and diving! Just kidding of course.

Now seriously what I would suggest you to do is to move along with your diving activities only if you really enjoy it. You were apparently sold short and doing it at your own pace now with another instructor may do the trick but again only if you want it really bad and feel you could enjoy it at the end of the road. On the other hand my boss always says that there is life without "something" so this expression might be applied here as well. There is life without diving and millions of people manage to live their happy lives without even knowing what diving is all about. :cool2:

By the way there is a question for everybody. Has anyone of you ever heard that a student failed and was refused to be certified? I haven't. This is really weird but I think all the students get OW certified no matter how good or bad they are... which to my mind shouldn't be happening... Let alone that diving may not be recommended or even prohibited for vaious health conditions...