New Diver fear of “the void”

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loosenit2

si respiratio sub aqua amet
Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
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I'm a Fish!
Need a little advice. I got my 14 year old daughter OW certified last fall. Since then I have been working with her on improving her comfort, skills, and dive planing. She does great when there is good visibility and she has reference points. She is really struggling with what she calls the “void”. Basically when visibility is poor or we are defending or ascending without reference points she gets very scared.

I am working with her on preventing poor visibility. We dive a lot of lakes with very silty bottoms and she is kicking up a storm, so working with her on frog kicking vs flutter kicking and maintaining good buoyancy.

Does anyone have any good techniques or drills to help get her more comfortable when diving with limited or obscured refrence points?
 
Have you considered having an instructor work independently with her on these skills? There might be a combination of 1. being anxious about physical conditions and 2. being anxious about parental disappointment that leads to overall poor performance. Remove 2., work on decreasing 1., and then reintroduce 2.
 
I would not be overly concerned. Just make sure you try to dive with her in environments with a bottom, good light and acceptable viability. As she gets more dives under her belt. her comfort in less than ideal conditions will increase. I would not try to push a 14 year old. You may turn her off diving forever.
 
She will get used to it, just make sure she takes her time doing so.
When I did my AOW our first dive we swam out a good bit and then dropped straight down to 30m, visibility here in Sweden isn't the best so we pretty much experienced "the void" for most of our descent, it was not a very enjoyable experience but I trusted my instructor 100% and once we got down and leveled off it was out of my mind.
It's like whisky, most people gotta take their time getting used to it :)
 
Many years ago when California Spearfishing moved from the reef to open blue water spear fishing I joined the tribe in blue water.
Nothing is so lonely as be all by yourself surrounded by water with visibility at infinity and some thing such as a fish or a shark materializes out of the blue and swims toward you - either out of curiosity or a possible next meal .
For a number of dives I was hesitant then after repeated dives became the norm-- just a as possibly for you repetitively diving in limited visibility in Texas mud holes

It just might take time and frequent dives
If not seek professional assistance - and I am not referring to a fuzzy faced Instructor who reads up side down and backward faster than you can read right side up and forward

Good luck

Sam Miller, III
 
Would a shot line (weighted line with a buoy) help her with a reference point, and hence confidence?
I speak from little experience with bad vis, but when I had to dive the marina for my lost glasses in near-zero vis, where I couldn't even read my gauges and compass, someone suggested dropping a weighted line with a lifejacket tied on the surface. It really helped with avoiding disorientation.

And eventually I found them.
 
We are talking about a 14 year old. Just let her enjoy herself and over time she will develop the comfort to do more adventuresome diving.
 
Shore diving in warm clear water with a visible bottom. Sounds like a great excuse for another tropical vacation. My wife still gets a little anxious when we swim out over or into the deep blue with nothing but the unknown in any direction.
 
Need a little advice. I got my 14 year old daughter OW certified last fall. Since then I have been working with her on improving her comfort, skills, and dive planing. She does great when there is good visibility and she has reference points. She is really struggling with what she calls the “void”. Basically when visibility is poor or we are defending or ascending without reference points she gets very scared.

I am working with her on preventing poor visibility. We dive a lot of lakes with very silty bottoms and she is kicking up a storm, so working with her on frog kicking vs flutter kicking and maintaining good buoyancy.

Does anyone have any good techniques or drills to help get her more comfortable when diving with limited or obscured refrence points?
Make sure she understands that going up is always an option. If she (or you) ploughs into the bottom and it all goes dark and zero viz then that will be a way out.

Of course this only applies in easy open water with no deco etc so is not a substitute for good skills.

I have been in the water with a child that age in zero vis. She was pretty good about it but I gave up as it was supposedly to be a skills dive and I could not demo, partly because she couldn’t see me and partly because I would have had to let go of her and was not prepared to do that.

If those conditions even adults (maybe especially adults) are quite uncomfortable. If you get one who is not too proud to be seen to freak out they may bolt.

Finning and buoyancy can be practiced in a pool. Less nasty for all concerned if you don’t have platforms or easy conditions in open water.
 
Not being able to see the bottom can be unnerving to some. I‛m not an expert on this but it may be similar to a fear of heights to some people. Knowing that you‛re not sinking below your certification level might help and relying on your dive computer to tell you your depth might help solve that problem.
 
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