ScooterTDI
Registered
Yesterday, my wife and I "completed" our OW dives and were certified. We really should have been failed. It was the typical e-learning, then one weekend confined training, and finally one weekend OW dives.
I was able to do most things well enough, except hovering. I could maintain position (depth), but not orientation. I couldn't go more than 10 sec with out sculling to maintain a horizontal orientation.
My wife was much worse. During confined training, she bolted for the surface twice during mask flood/removal. We went to the pool for about 3-4 hours after the first confined water session and worked through this step-by-step until she had gotten it down. She has no problems with mask flood/clearing now.
In the 2 weeks between confined and OW sessions, my wife and I went to the pool nearly every night and work on her kick strokes. She has the typical bicycle-riding stroke and we got here to keep her legs straight, but only when she was consciously focusing on that. I kind of knew that she would revert back to the bicycle kick during the OW dives.
The first OW dive was a "fun" dive in the quarry. My wife freaked a bit during this dive and the instructor had to hold her hand the entire time. Later, she said that she had felt like crying during much of the dive.
The second dive went smoother, but she was unable to do a normal swimming ascent because her kick strokes were so ineffective that she didn't go anywhere. It looked as if she was climbing an invisible set of stairs very rapidly. Eventually, she just squirted a bunch of air in here BCD and pretty much just floated up. She knows that she should swim up and not float up, but she seemed unable to focus on kicking effectively. She has done this numerous times during the confined water and I have noticed and discussed it with her repeatedly (the instructor never said a word about that issue to her).
On the second day of OW, things got really bad. The scariest part was during her navigational swim. She was supposed to keep the heading and I was supposed to watch depth and let her know when to turn. She kept gradually descending and I kept letting her know that she needed to start swimming up, but she seemed oblivious. We arrive back at the platform, but were about 20 ft too deep. She sees a mooring line for the floating platform and starts descending along it because she seems to think it is the line above the platform that leads to the barrel floats at the surface. At this point, I can barely see the DM that was following us and I can barely see my wife. Both are ~10 ft. from me on either side and the visibility that day was 10 ft. I am about halfway between the DM and my wife, so I know the DM cannot see my wife anymore and the instructor is still sitting on the platform. The DM starts going up to the platform for some reason. I realize that I am the only one who can still locate my wife and she is still descending away from me. I dart down and grab her by the BCD and drag her up to the platform.
I am a little exhausted at this point and as I was swimming her up to the platform I felt like I was approaching panic. Seeing my wife drift into darkness along with overbreathing my reg and snorting a bunch of water out of my mask had me almost to the point of losing it. Realizing that I had to calm myself, I knelt on the platform, closed my eyes, and forced myself to slow my breathing. A few second later I was able to recompose myselfand that is the only thing I felt good about during this dive.
Somehow this was considered a successful completetion of the task and we finished the dive with a "fun" swim in which we toured the quarry wall in single file. My wife was behind me and following too closely. After getting accidently kicked in the face she started sinking and clinging to the quarry wall. The DM grabbed her this time before she disappeared and held her hand and dragged her along the rest of the dive.
Unfortunately, we were both certified. My wife was very happy about this and I was extremely dismayed. On the drive home, I had to tell her that I didn't feel comfortable diving with her and I wasn't sure if I ever really would.
So where do we go from here?
Take OW dives again? I feel like the compressed format given by all the local dive shops is insufficient to really give us enough experience to safely dive even if we take it 5 times.
Hire an instructor for private sessions? After seeing both an instructor and a DM lose my wife in the quarry, I don't feel like they can really prevent us from hurting ourselves.
Any advice on how to proceed?
Thanks for any input you can provide. We both really want to learn to be good divers, but right now the path to that goal seems more dangerous than ever.
I was able to do most things well enough, except hovering. I could maintain position (depth), but not orientation. I couldn't go more than 10 sec with out sculling to maintain a horizontal orientation.
My wife was much worse. During confined training, she bolted for the surface twice during mask flood/removal. We went to the pool for about 3-4 hours after the first confined water session and worked through this step-by-step until she had gotten it down. She has no problems with mask flood/clearing now.
In the 2 weeks between confined and OW sessions, my wife and I went to the pool nearly every night and work on her kick strokes. She has the typical bicycle-riding stroke and we got here to keep her legs straight, but only when she was consciously focusing on that. I kind of knew that she would revert back to the bicycle kick during the OW dives.
The first OW dive was a "fun" dive in the quarry. My wife freaked a bit during this dive and the instructor had to hold her hand the entire time. Later, she said that she had felt like crying during much of the dive.
The second dive went smoother, but she was unable to do a normal swimming ascent because her kick strokes were so ineffective that she didn't go anywhere. It looked as if she was climbing an invisible set of stairs very rapidly. Eventually, she just squirted a bunch of air in here BCD and pretty much just floated up. She knows that she should swim up and not float up, but she seemed unable to focus on kicking effectively. She has done this numerous times during the confined water and I have noticed and discussed it with her repeatedly (the instructor never said a word about that issue to her).
On the second day of OW, things got really bad. The scariest part was during her navigational swim. She was supposed to keep the heading and I was supposed to watch depth and let her know when to turn. She kept gradually descending and I kept letting her know that she needed to start swimming up, but she seemed oblivious. We arrive back at the platform, but were about 20 ft too deep. She sees a mooring line for the floating platform and starts descending along it because she seems to think it is the line above the platform that leads to the barrel floats at the surface. At this point, I can barely see the DM that was following us and I can barely see my wife. Both are ~10 ft. from me on either side and the visibility that day was 10 ft. I am about halfway between the DM and my wife, so I know the DM cannot see my wife anymore and the instructor is still sitting on the platform. The DM starts going up to the platform for some reason. I realize that I am the only one who can still locate my wife and she is still descending away from me. I dart down and grab her by the BCD and drag her up to the platform.
I am a little exhausted at this point and as I was swimming her up to the platform I felt like I was approaching panic. Seeing my wife drift into darkness along with overbreathing my reg and snorting a bunch of water out of my mask had me almost to the point of losing it. Realizing that I had to calm myself, I knelt on the platform, closed my eyes, and forced myself to slow my breathing. A few second later I was able to recompose myselfand that is the only thing I felt good about during this dive.
Somehow this was considered a successful completetion of the task and we finished the dive with a "fun" swim in which we toured the quarry wall in single file. My wife was behind me and following too closely. After getting accidently kicked in the face she started sinking and clinging to the quarry wall. The DM grabbed her this time before she disappeared and held her hand and dragged her along the rest of the dive.
Unfortunately, we were both certified. My wife was very happy about this and I was extremely dismayed. On the drive home, I had to tell her that I didn't feel comfortable diving with her and I wasn't sure if I ever really would.
So where do we go from here?
Take OW dives again? I feel like the compressed format given by all the local dive shops is insufficient to really give us enough experience to safely dive even if we take it 5 times.
Hire an instructor for private sessions? After seeing both an instructor and a DM lose my wife in the quarry, I don't feel like they can really prevent us from hurting ourselves.
Any advice on how to proceed?
Thanks for any input you can provide. We both really want to learn to be good divers, but right now the path to that goal seems more dangerous than ever.
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