A story I want to share.
It was before my time as instructor andabout 2 years ago.
A dive in tropical water, a pinnacle, Ihave been there before 5 or 6 times, open ocean and some currents.
Already two things were wrong before weeven entered the water.
I did not like my buddy personally nordid I trust him at all. He was a young lad, fresh divemaster without much experience beyond his DM training (0 to hero, I am notagainst these courses! This is only ment to explain the situation).I had been DM for more or less 2 years and had been actively workingas a DM for about 1 year. All others on the boat were teachingcourses and we only hopped on board last minute to fun dive. Thatmade us a buddy pair.
First mistake:We had no clear diveplan. Both of us knew the site a bit and I thought we just want tohave a nice easy dive. Stupid me!
Anyhow , we decedent, viz was good andhe turned into the direction of a deeper pinnacle starting around 20 meters.I had not jet a problem with it since I did not expect him to start goingeven deeper and drop down at the backside which was dark even though I was starting to fight the current a bit. We were now roughly 25 metersdeep and I already had two new problems.
One was that I did not wanted to gothere, I saw no reason to do so since the viz just around the corneror on top of the pinnacle was much better and assumed he is simplydoing it for the sheer depths he can find there ( maybe he waseuphoric or a bit narced)
Second problem was that I did notwanted to go any deeper which he clearly intended as he took the leadnot looked back at me and decedent all the time.
Both was stress for me.
So there I was, at 28 meter, already anxious and theguy still going down. It came very quickly, I had troubles breathing. We had been swimming into a current and this combined with themental stress, depths and the general unwell feeling had added allup.
I was now breathing very fast andheavy, a feeling as if my regulator simply cant deliver enough airfor the exercise I am doing started to emerge. I was really not sureif I should go up and just leave him. For a while I was on the edgeof panic. I now really wanted to go up but thought to my self “keepcalm”. Still very heavy breathing I swam down to him, I reached hisfin, pulled and signaled him “I do not go deeper “and that i donot get enough air .At this point I was just keeping it together for the sheer reasonthat I did not wanted to abandon him which he would have not noticed.
Anyhow, he gave me his octopus, I triedand it was a little better, but not much. I had an all around strangefeeling and was presumably a bit narced as well. I was stillbreathing heavy and had no time to rest. We were now at roughly 26meter. I wrote on my slate that my reg is not working well at this depths ( this waswhat I thought in this moment since it was non balanced even though i had been much deeper with it before) and that I wanted to go up. He againtook the lead, went a bit shallower and than kept on swimming toanother pinnacle close by at about 20 meter while slowly goinghigher. We signaled “ok” quite some times during the next minutesand only the first time I gave a clear “ok” back. All the othertimes I twisted my hand as a sign for “ not really ok” until minutes later when Igave him a clear “now up” sign. I was monitoring my gasconstantly and finally ended the dive after a little more than 35minutes and had sucked a 12 liter tank down to 10 bar. I was scaredand angry.
I was not trusting my reg fully and Iwas angry with him that he did not went up with me as a buddy pairwhen I signaled him I felt bad and had a feeling of not getting enough air. We had been only minutes into the dive and could havemade a slow ascent which would most likely callmed myself immediatelyas I would have gained trust in him. I always would go up with anyoneif he or she indicates any kind of breathing difficulties.
Instead I pulled myself through therest of the dive by closing eyes and forcing myself to breath deepand as relaxed a I could. But it really was no pleasure, it was bad.
( I am not angry anymore as he has also learned a lot from this incident )
I still have some trouble when divingwith someone I do not know very well and at a depths below 20 meter.I really want to change this feeling.
So to all you who might read this.
1.Do never ever think about divingwith someone as buddie who you do not like personally or even worse,do not fully trust. My major mistake. Sure we do not want to saysomeone in his face that we don't trusts his ability as a diver orsimply not feel comfortable with him. But it is what i would do eversince on any live abroad or dive trip with strangers.
2.Make a dive Plan, it is so easy!
Also include any eventualities one canthink of in it! This alone will form a bond between buddies.
(something I have unfortunately seenmany times being neglected in the tropics)
3 .When already pushed over the comfortzone and stress hits, than force yourself to keep calm, panic is nooption and all is fine as long as there is air to breath in the tank.
We CAN calm or minds quite a lot if wetrain.
I would be glad to hear the opinion ofothers to this story and ideas on how to gain back full confidenceand comfort. Maybe others have experienced similar things early intotheir diving. It would be interesting to know how you dealt with it.
The stiffness has gotten a lot betterthrough slowly raising the bar again but I am not as relaxed as iused to be when approaching 30 meters or deeper (this could be a good thing asI have been slightly foolish as you now know).
It was before my time as instructor andabout 2 years ago.
A dive in tropical water, a pinnacle, Ihave been there before 5 or 6 times, open ocean and some currents.
Already two things were wrong before weeven entered the water.
I did not like my buddy personally nordid I trust him at all. He was a young lad, fresh divemaster without much experience beyond his DM training (0 to hero, I am notagainst these courses! This is only ment to explain the situation).I had been DM for more or less 2 years and had been actively workingas a DM for about 1 year. All others on the boat were teachingcourses and we only hopped on board last minute to fun dive. Thatmade us a buddy pair.
First mistake:We had no clear diveplan. Both of us knew the site a bit and I thought we just want tohave a nice easy dive. Stupid me!
Anyhow , we decedent, viz was good andhe turned into the direction of a deeper pinnacle starting around 20 meters.I had not jet a problem with it since I did not expect him to start goingeven deeper and drop down at the backside which was dark even though I was starting to fight the current a bit. We were now roughly 25 metersdeep and I already had two new problems.
One was that I did not wanted to gothere, I saw no reason to do so since the viz just around the corneror on top of the pinnacle was much better and assumed he is simplydoing it for the sheer depths he can find there ( maybe he waseuphoric or a bit narced)
Second problem was that I did notwanted to go any deeper which he clearly intended as he took the leadnot looked back at me and decedent all the time.
Both was stress for me.
So there I was, at 28 meter, already anxious and theguy still going down. It came very quickly, I had troubles breathing. We had been swimming into a current and this combined with themental stress, depths and the general unwell feeling had added allup.
I was now breathing very fast andheavy, a feeling as if my regulator simply cant deliver enough airfor the exercise I am doing started to emerge. I was really not sureif I should go up and just leave him. For a while I was on the edgeof panic. I now really wanted to go up but thought to my self “keepcalm”. Still very heavy breathing I swam down to him, I reached hisfin, pulled and signaled him “I do not go deeper “and that i donot get enough air .At this point I was just keeping it together for the sheer reasonthat I did not wanted to abandon him which he would have not noticed.
Anyhow, he gave me his octopus, I triedand it was a little better, but not much. I had an all around strangefeeling and was presumably a bit narced as well. I was stillbreathing heavy and had no time to rest. We were now at roughly 26meter. I wrote on my slate that my reg is not working well at this depths ( this waswhat I thought in this moment since it was non balanced even though i had been much deeper with it before) and that I wanted to go up. He againtook the lead, went a bit shallower and than kept on swimming toanother pinnacle close by at about 20 meter while slowly goinghigher. We signaled “ok” quite some times during the next minutesand only the first time I gave a clear “ok” back. All the othertimes I twisted my hand as a sign for “ not really ok” until minutes later when Igave him a clear “now up” sign. I was monitoring my gasconstantly and finally ended the dive after a little more than 35minutes and had sucked a 12 liter tank down to 10 bar. I was scaredand angry.
I was not trusting my reg fully and Iwas angry with him that he did not went up with me as a buddy pairwhen I signaled him I felt bad and had a feeling of not getting enough air. We had been only minutes into the dive and could havemade a slow ascent which would most likely callmed myself immediatelyas I would have gained trust in him. I always would go up with anyoneif he or she indicates any kind of breathing difficulties.
Instead I pulled myself through therest of the dive by closing eyes and forcing myself to breath deepand as relaxed a I could. But it really was no pleasure, it was bad.
( I am not angry anymore as he has also learned a lot from this incident )
I still have some trouble when divingwith someone I do not know very well and at a depths below 20 meter.I really want to change this feeling.
So to all you who might read this.
1.Do never ever think about divingwith someone as buddie who you do not like personally or even worse,do not fully trust. My major mistake. Sure we do not want to saysomeone in his face that we don't trusts his ability as a diver orsimply not feel comfortable with him. But it is what i would do eversince on any live abroad or dive trip with strangers.
2.Make a dive Plan, it is so easy!
Also include any eventualities one canthink of in it! This alone will form a bond between buddies.
(something I have unfortunately seenmany times being neglected in the tropics)
3 .When already pushed over the comfortzone and stress hits, than force yourself to keep calm, panic is nooption and all is fine as long as there is air to breath in the tank.
We CAN calm or minds quite a lot if wetrain.
I would be glad to hear the opinion ofothers to this story and ideas on how to gain back full confidenceand comfort. Maybe others have experienced similar things early intotheir diving. It would be interesting to know how you dealt with it.
The stiffness has gotten a lot betterthrough slowly raising the bar again but I am not as relaxed as iused to be when approaching 30 meters or deeper (this could be a good thing asI have been slightly foolish as you now know).
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