What do Open water divers struggle with the most?

[DBPacific]

Buoyancy. One piece of gear changed (ex. Going to a drysuit) can take someone that has their buoyancy figured out (in a wetsuit) and make them look like an OW student.

I’ve dived with more than a couple people (OW through Master cert) that struggled to get weighted to submerge in a drysuit. By that, I’m talking needing multiple weight additions and even then struggling to submerge.

Thats not a knock on them, but more of a question along the lines of “how exactly are drysuit courses/instructors teaching weighting?” There’s no common instructor or agency for the people that I mentioned, so it just makes me wonder.

That’s not even getting into buoyancy issues that the average diver in a wetsuit deals with.

Even just moving from warm water exposure suits to cold water. I learned to dive in northern Australia, with normally just a 5mm suit and boots and that was it. I managed to get my buoyancy and trim pretty well figured out. Now getting my scientific cert in the PNW, I have a 7mm wetsuit, 7mm hood/vest, the same 5mm boots, but 5mm gloves too. Had my first three dives for the class last week and my buoyancy control on those dives were far worse than on any of my OW dives.

 

[DBPacific]

Mask removal for me was the worst and, like everyone else is saying, is the most common. For me personally, I get chronic headaches (cleared by a dive medical) which can be triggered by things like light, sound, strong smells...or something touching or moving around my forehead or eyes. Rain is impossible for me to get through painlessly without a hat on to deflect the droplets, so I expected suddenly immersing my face and eyes in water to remove a mask would be equally painful. Luckily, I've never had a headache be caused by mask removal, but I still somewhat expect it in the back of my mind, so I get a little anxious about the drills. Not so much anymore after having to do it so many darn times. My OW instructor had me do the drill multiple times in the shallow end and even just kneel with my reg in and my mask off for a bit, just to show me it wasn't all that bad. If she saw me willingly swim laps in the pool without a mask or buddy breathing without a mask on like I am now, I think she'd have a heart attack

 

[D_Fresh]

Panic is directly related to a diver's lack of control. I hope I'm not harping or pulling this discussion off topic, but there's simply no need or excuse to produce a diver with subpar trim and neutral buoyancy. Traditionally a diver is taught on their knees. At the very end of each pool session, they might get a chance to actually swim, but for the most part they spend most of their class on their knees. Once their skills are "mastered" (quotes on purpose), they might spend a few minutes on being neutral but all the skill boxes have been ticked so they are going to OW, whether they have this neutral buoyancy thing down or not. Worse, they are usually told that it's going to take a 100 dives to learn this skill. This is utter BS. Once in OW, the traditional class will kneel in a semi-circle around their instructor and go through all the skills they learned in the pool in a serial fashion. They might have to do a "Buddha Hover" for 60 seconds, but that's all they have to do in regards to buoyancy. The little boxes have been ticked, so they get a cert. Ask any agency wonk and they'll tell you that this is not how it's supposed to work. It's not. But reading these comments tell us that it's pretty nigh universal.

If I could give one piece of advice to potential divers: find an instructor who won't let you kneel, sit or stand on the bottom at any time. There shouldn't be a need for you to have to take a "buoyancy class". It should all be covered in your OW class. Of all the skills you need to be a diver, trim and buoyancy are at the very center of them all. Master (without quotes) those two and all the others become incredibly simple.

I could not agree more. I will not name drop, but I feel incredibly fortunate having done my certs with the operation/instructor I did. We were a small group and really worked with each other on each skill as needed. If someone needed more work on something, we all did it together. We chose, as a group, to work at the pace of the slowest student, as opposed to them going off and doing it individually with the instructor. I feel it was very thorough, definitely more than is standard today.

The "pay for your cert" scenario is way too common these days....

 

[D&JH]

My biggest issue was the Giant Stride Entry. It took me forever to enter the pool with it and before I did I was in full on sobs. I finally went in and face planted because my feet were not fully over the edge of the pool. Now, I am pretty good with them.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The biggest problem I see is the time frame people are expected to get all the skills down good enough to be able to redo all the skills in the cold ocean on day three in full heavy scuba gear. Then be expected to plan and execute a dive on their own with another certified buddy right after that. I used to DM for a few instructors and help with classes so I’ve seen stuff.
Some of these people never had any experience even with snorkeling and could swim ok but were not really water people. I’ve seen it all from reg clearing to air shares to mask drills. The biggest rocket launcher was the mask off drill in 48-50 degree ocean water for a person that has only used scuba gear the previous weekend in a warm pool. Pretty scary!
We are somewhat fortunate here that we have the ocean close by with some decent freediving opportunities. What I mean by that is there is plenty of shore diving with enough to see instead of just sand to at least make it interesting. I always recommended to people asking me about diving off our coast, especially if they’ve never been in the water with a mask and wetsuit/fins, is to get enough gear to skindive/freedive for a year or two (if they’re not in a hurry) and just get used to the gear, the thick wetsuit, weightbelt, mask, breathing through a snorkel, using fins, etc. getting used to the cold water. They can use the same gear for scuba once they get certified. It helps immensely and makes scuba certification a breeze, at least in my area.

 

[TMHeimer]

For me personally it was the doff/don of the scuba unit drill. Both when I took OW and when needing to get my skills to "demo" quality in the DM course. I've read that mask/airway skills are maybe the leaders in causing students problems. Maybe buoyancy too. But in my limited time assisting in OW courses I would say that most any skill can be a problem. Certainly removing and replacing the weight belt on the surface without it getting hung up in back. I've seen maybe 1 out of 3 struggle with that one.

 

[miadukes]

Mask drills will probably top most people's list. The problem with doing mask drills is they all involve putting water in the mask. Then the student has to clear the water out. But they're new at it, and they are skeptical. Which means if they're not able to clear the water on the first try, their brain tends to jump quickly to "this doesn't work!" followed by "and I can't see!"

And of course the only way to convince them that it does work is to get them to try again... which some of them are reluctant to do because they've decided it doesn't work. Once they are able to clear their mask the first time, the problem usually goes away.

I've found that problems clearing the mask are usually caused by a mask strap that's too tight. I always address setting the mask strap tension properly well before introducing the first mask drill underwater; found that minimizes anxiety and issues over mask drills, since most students can then clear their mask fairly easily.

All other potential issues (buoyancy, etc) are pretty easy for students to work on until they hone their skills, they don't seem to have the potential to cause panic the way that mask drills do.

I have to say that instructor plays a huge role or at least it did for me. This was on my mind long before the actual class time, so it was mental for me, having to remove mask, reg etc. The first time we were in the pool and had to pull our regs out of our mouth, mentally I was like AHH, but then I did it and no problem, so that was a big step ... but then came time for the fill the mask and clear it part.Well I had a HUGE mask, it was my snorkel mask (scuba too) but obviously and clearly too big for this drill (and me) although at the time what did I know. So I tried it the first time and "freaked out a little". Up to the top we go and instructor tells me and I'll never forget this "You were clearing your mask fine but its like an Aquarium in there so you have to keep going, let's try it again, look at me and I'll tell you". So back down we go and sure enough we try again, I go at it 2/3 times blowing out and no change, in my eyes anyway, and I look to him and I see him giving a sign like keep going, keep going, so I keep doing what he instructed and sure enough after another blow out, I see the water level come down to my eyes (and I think to myself, OMG I am actually doing this!) so I did it a couple more times and mask cleared. Sounds so stupid but had he not been attentive and realized what my problem was, I probably would have given up right there since for me it had been such a huge mental block. I have since gotten a smaller mask and all is well but that is the one part of my OW pool session I always remember.

 

[avfcmichael]

I can honestly say my biggest struggle was that of everyone elses - the full mask remove and replace.

I have never had issues under water with my eyes being open underwater before - but I don't know if it was the bubbles it just seemed to disorientate myself, and STUPIDLY I spat the regs out and went for the surface from the bottom of the 3m pool. I tried it a couple of times, and paniced massively. I asked the instructor if we could go to the 1m part of the pool, tried doing it knelt down (with my eyes closed) and then perfected it, and didn't have any more issues. Completed it on the OW dive as required, fine no issues.

Paitenace and understaning from the instructor was amazing, cannot thank them enough! So happy to be now taking the next step this weekend with my AOW cert.

 

[kelemvor]

I struggled with the 60' underwater swim without gear. I had tried 4 or 5 times to complete the requirement without succeeding. I had to hire a separate swim instructor to get through it. That guy watched me try it once. Spent 3 minutes telling me what I did wrong, then watched me do it successfully a few times. There was also a 600' above water swim (I think.. a bunch of times around the pool) which I found very easy. Some of the other folks in class had to attempt it more than once. I'm pretty floaty, so anything involving being at the surface is easy for me.

It was kind of an eye opener. I've spent my whole life in Florida. I learned to swim very young, and swim pretty regularly. Until that scuba class, I would have said I was a strong swimmer. Now, maybe I really am.

I guess not all agencies have this requirement in OW class. I don't recall my daughter having to do it in SSI class.

 

[TMHeimer]

It's an old pet peeve of mine, but I can never help thinking that those with airway/mask off problems simply hadn't spent any significant time in water (swimming/snorkeling/surfing, etc.) prior to jumping into an OW scuba course. Could be wrong.