Weird bits are weird bits. Repeated exposure should help. Definitely does with me.
Fear Into the Abyss
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Weird bits are weird bits. Repeated exposure should help. Definitely does with me.
OP
Diver below 83
Contributor
OP
It amazes me that it's really just a fear of the unknown. Let's say the quarry was clear as glass....this wouldn't even be a discussion. The thing is, there's really never anything just outside your light....at least not in the quarry. There's nothing through the haze, just clay and muck. So it's just the unknown...
I assume it's the bodies natural reaction to losing one of our senses. It says gtfo while you still have the others, lol.
I assume it's the bodies natural reaction to losing one of our senses. It says gtfo while you still have the others, lol.
Which quarry are you talking about? Perhaps there is another path to take down that is not so off-putting.
84CJ7
Contributor
I feel exactly the same way.
I got into diving because I was too scared to tip over the sailboat for the small boat sailing class in boy scouts when I was younger because there was nothing but black water under it (left the class incomplete) and I despise being beat.
Its also the reason I like my 19cf pony and two vintage aqualung rambo dive knives (well that and two big unnecessary knives puts DIR people into seizures
).
Fear is an engineering problem in my book.
I often tell people who think they like scary places to take up diving in the north. Want a haunted forest? Try diving in 50 degree water in low light in the submerged dead trees in lake wazee (its a full on dead forest) and maybe you take a wrong and end up over a few hundred feet of blackness.
Want a haunted house? Try some of the deeper more intact great lakes shipwrecks (not something I have experience with yet) they look creepy as hell and people actually died in them.
If you handle the fear even with the unexpected shocks (like its dark and deep and where the hell did my buddy suddenly go) and don't hyperventilate your air away then its all good. I think a lot of that type of diving trips hard wired genetic fears from way back that aren't very easy to completely remove if its even possible.
EDIT: and I totally get the water type deciding it all. I could solo in the Caymans at 100 feet with zero issue if it were allowed by the dive boats. Though I did have a holy crap moment when I jumped in and looked down and there was nothing but blue that apparently was a slope to "a few thousand feet" right off the reef.
Please fully inflate BCD prior to exiting the craft.
I got into diving because I was too scared to tip over the sailboat for the small boat sailing class in boy scouts when I was younger because there was nothing but black water under it (left the class incomplete) and I despise being beat.
Its also the reason I like my 19cf pony and two vintage aqualung rambo dive knives (well that and two big unnecessary knives puts DIR people into seizures
).Fear is an engineering problem in my book.
I often tell people who think they like scary places to take up diving in the north. Want a haunted forest? Try diving in 50 degree water in low light in the submerged dead trees in lake wazee (its a full on dead forest) and maybe you take a wrong and end up over a few hundred feet of blackness.
Want a haunted house? Try some of the deeper more intact great lakes shipwrecks (not something I have experience with yet) they look creepy as hell and people actually died in them.
If you handle the fear even with the unexpected shocks (like its dark and deep and where the hell did my buddy suddenly go) and don't hyperventilate your air away then its all good. I think a lot of that type of diving trips hard wired genetic fears from way back that aren't very easy to completely remove if its even possible.
EDIT: and I totally get the water type deciding it all. I could solo in the Caymans at 100 feet with zero issue if it were allowed by the dive boats. Though I did have a holy crap moment when I jumped in and looked down and there was nothing but blue that apparently was a slope to "a few thousand feet" right off the reef.
Please fully inflate BCD prior to exiting the craft.
OP
No, I think I just need to take a leap of faith, lol. It's the same feeling I would get as a little kid on the diving board
@The Chairman had it right, it's ignorance because I don't know what's there.
OP
I feel exactly the same way.
I got into diving because I was too scared to tip over the sailboat for the small boat sailing class in boy scouts when I was younger because there was nothing but black water under it (left the class incomplete) and I despise being beat.
Its also the reason I like my 19cf pony and two vintage aqualung rambo dive knives (well that and two big unnecessary knives puts DIR people into seizures
Fear is an engineering problem in my book.
I often tell people who think they like scary places to take up diving in the north. Want a haunted forest? Try diving in 50 degree water in low light in the submerged dead trees in lake wazee (its a full on dead forest) and maybe you take a wrong and end up over a few hundred feet of blackness.
Want a haunted house? Try some of the deeper more intact great lakes shipwrecks (not something I have experience with yet) they look creepy as hell and people actually died in them.
If you handle the fear even with the unexpected shocks (like its dark and deep and where the hell did my buddy suddenly go) and don't hyperventilate your air away then its all good. I think a lot of that type of diving trips hard wired genetic fears from way back that aren't very easy to completely remove if its even possible.
EDIT: and I totally get the water type deciding it all. I could solo in the Caymans at 100 feet with zero issue if it were allowed by the dive boats.
I agree 100%, that's what I love about diving. It is a fear of the unknown.
I just went to the St. Lawrence River and did some really neat wrecks, not one of which were "scary". I actually had to catch up to the group @ 90' because my wife just couldn't equalize, got to the bottom of the mooring line and the line to the wreck was gone....I took a look around and said THIS is what it's all about. And then out of the fog rose the wreck....what an awe inspiring sight.
Edit: Kinhorn (was the wreck)...beautiful...
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My thought is most people are at least somewhat uncomfortable if viz is very poor. You know nothing's in the murky quarry that can hurt you--ocean is a different story. Guess you either fight through it or avoid it.
I have an unexplainable fear of being in water (swimming, etc.) that even approaches being over my head (5-6'). Yet on scuba being 100' down on the bottom doesn't bother me at all.
I have an unexplainable fear of being in water (swimming, etc.) that even approaches being over my head (5-6'). Yet on scuba being 100' down on the bottom doesn't bother me at all.
M-Cameron
Contributor
It is a perfectly natural response.... and we all go through it to some extent...and generally with experience it goes away.
When I first started duck hunting.... I was often out in the middle of a swamp, at 3am, in the dark, alone...and I don’t care if you are macho man randy savage, it’s spooky. But eventually it dawns on you that the same critters that are out in the day are the same critters that are out at night.... and YOU are the scariest thing in the swamp....and after a while you don’t think twice about it.
same thing happened when I started night and low vis diving.....you are in an unfamiliar encvironment and you can’t see much.... it’s spooky......, but again, once you realize that the same critters you see in the ocean during the day are the same critters that are there at night..... and by and large YOU are the most dangerous animal in the water..... that’s discomfort subsides.
its also the reason i dive with a massive dive knife.....not because i think ill actually need it ( i have a trilobite for actual line cutting)......but because it makes me feel better knowing ill be able to fight off a sea-Bear, enemy diver, or ocean yeti
When I first started duck hunting.... I was often out in the middle of a swamp, at 3am, in the dark, alone...and I don’t care if you are macho man randy savage, it’s spooky. But eventually it dawns on you that the same critters that are out in the day are the same critters that are out at night.... and YOU are the scariest thing in the swamp....and after a while you don’t think twice about it.
same thing happened when I started night and low vis diving.....you are in an unfamiliar encvironment and you can’t see much.... it’s spooky......, but again, once you realize that the same critters you see in the ocean during the day are the same critters that are there at night..... and by and large YOU are the most dangerous animal in the water..... that’s discomfort subsides.
its also the reason i dive with a massive dive knife.....not because i think ill actually need it ( i have a trilobite for actual line cutting)......but because it makes me feel better knowing ill be able to fight off a sea-Bear, enemy diver, or ocean yeti
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