Good Afternoon all!
Personally - I found my first Open Water Course (done here in Scotland with a diving company - quite scarey and male dominated) Firstly even just signing up was hard, very off-putting and intimidating on the phone.
I was the only female in a class of 8 big hairy arsed men and I felt that really any questions I wanted to ask would have been daft. There were all sorts of daft comments made about me and my chest size even before the classes started!
I certainly never would have asked about the female issues above - given the tone of the sessions.
I actually sadly, got a busted eardrum diving with this same company - as on my very
FIRST open Water dive in a local Loch - they buddied me up with this guy - who was 6'4' and built like a brick wall, with massive paws for hands - the Dive Instructor (bright spark that he was!!) told him to take my hand and hold onto it the whole way down - due to the expected low visibility.
Sad to say, his hand swallowed mine, he dragged me down to 7 metres, with my hand in his, with my other one free hand trying to dump air and equalise at the same time!
I couldn't and he wasn't even looking at me - neither was the instructor and my eardrum just got worse, and worse and then - blew.
When finally the (male) instructor bothered to ask me if I was ok - and I gesticulated that 'NO!! I AM BLOODY NOT!' (use your imagination here!) he indicated for me to go to the surface ON MY OWN!!!!! Which I did (not knowing any better) and got a reverse vertigo on the way up. Then I passed out at the surface, no-one came to help me exit the water (ALL MALES ONLY PRESENT) and no-one helped. Once on land - I was crying and really upset - this was my dream to become a diving instructor - and I was told by all the men at the shore - that if I'd blown my eardrum then
that was it - I would NEVER be able to dive again. They actually were laughing at me!
Needless to say, I went to the hospital - where a lovely (FEMALE) doctor checked and told me my eardrum was in fact blown - and when I cried at this, she asked, 'Why are you so upset?' and I told her - 'It's my dream to be an instructor and now I can't!' (Believing what the men shore-side said) she smiled kindly and said 'don't be silly, it grows back!' and 'even if it didn't - you can have it fixed'
Having not really believed her (thought she was just being nice - but she wasn't!) I emailed PADI and asked them - they contacted the dive centre in question and they hadn't recorded the incident nor reported it to the upper management in the company. PADI acted on this - and the way that they did made me believe that PADI was the training organisation for me!
I am very sad that this was my first experience diving - but it did NOT stop me - I went on and did the referral dives in Adelaide, Australia (where I was taught by a man and a lady!) I am now a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor, having lived and worked abroad for years as a PADI OWSI and I now know just how bad (AND OUTRIGHT DANGEROUS!) what happened to me was - I am aiming at making diving for ALL other females and children in Scotland a lot more safe, fun and thorough.
I take real pleasure in teaching others and love to change this attitude here in Scotland, if you have any advice, questions or others on this post - I'd love to hear from you!
Best Fishes!!
