What is your biggest Fear in diving?

[Mike Boswell]

My wife is also my dive buddy. God forbid should something happen to her...I love her.

Ditto the wife thing. When my wife first learned to dive I held her hand, all the time on every dive. Then when she got some confidence and I let her go, I worried that she was going to get overconfident. Even now, I look back constantly to make sure she is nearby. I am ridiculously over-protective.

As to worry, I worry about current mostly. In low vis, if you aren't paying attention, it is easy to get yourself downcurrent of the boat, and then you have a problem.

Even before I anchor my boat, I am thinking: Is there current - how strong - in what direction - will it change - where will we do the dive - where will we ascend - where will we drift to during safety stop - if we miss the boat where will the current take us - what will we do about it?

I think one of the best things about Rescue training is the focus on dive planning, site assessment, and problem prevention. This training replaces negative worry with positive planning.

 

[JamesBon92007]

I have to agree with others that my number one fear is an incompetant buddy. I've had to assist/rescue MOST of the certified divers that I've dived with. Plus other divers that I wasn't even diving with.

Number two is drowning. Therefore I don't dive in caves.

Number three (or possibly number two) is Jet Skis, but mainly while free diving. Many times I have been afraid to surface while spearfishing because I couldn't tell where the damn thing was. And I figure they'd see my float and diver's flag and be curious and want to come look at it. When I feel threatened I surface with my speargun ready to take one of them with me.

 

[sabbath999]

Entanglement.

Not some minor thing like snagged on a bit of fishing line, but real entanglement like in a fishing net or in cables on a wreck.

 

[Purple Jos]

I think one of the best things about Rescue training is the focus on dive planning, site assessment, and problem prevention. This training replaces negative worry with positive planning.

Mike - this is key for me, planning and prevention.


For me and still being so new to diving, my biggest concern is not knowing how I will react to a problem. I train, and do drills, and am in the middle of the Rescue diver class right now, hoping that all of this will help me if there if something happens. Also, my husband is my dive buddy, and I worry that I will make some grievous mistake that will impact him.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Two things strike fear in my heart, I have an irrational fear of propellers when the motor is running. Live drops freak me out. Having the Nekton Pilot back toward us as we bobbed in the water after our drift dive sent me into a blind panic when it was my turn to set up to swim to the boat. I bolted away going over the top of 4 divers behind me to put anyone between me and that huge prop. The boat wasn't even that close to me.

The second fear? Having someone I trained die because I failed to give them the information they needed to make the safe decision on a dive. Ignoring their training and getting hurt or killed is one thing but the day I stop feeling the need to over protect them is the day I turn in my instructor credentials. My students become my kids and I want to turn them out of the nest as safe, confident divers who have the tools to make diving decisions in any conditions; especially when the decision is to skip the dive.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[elmer fudd]

Blacking out. It's never happened to me of course, but I have experienced plenty of vertigo underwater and when your head is spinning it sometimes makes you wonder if you're going to faint.

There's not a lot of hazardous marine life around here, I stick within my NDL's and I dive with big tanks that should give me the air to decompress if I ever accidentally go into deco, so I think I can manage the hazards associated with all that, but passing out underwater, you just know that would be very, very bad. Chances are almost 100% that you're going to either drown or get an air embolism on the way to the surface.

 

[TSandM]

That's interesting, elmer. I've had LOTS of trouble with vertigo, but never felt like I was going to pass out.

 

[Hoomi]

My biggest fear in diving, and life in general, is that I would become so afraid of dying that I stay home and quit living.

Yeah, there are dangerous things and creatures out there in the ocean. There's dangerous things and creatures right here on the land.

The most miserable death I can think of is to waste away in my bed, without having experienced as much of the joy that life has to offer.

I watched my dad waste away from cancer, and that scares me more than a Great White Shark ever could. A shark attack would have been quicker and more merciful. I'm darn sure not going to try and entice a shark to attack, but after watching what cancer does to a person, a shark just isn't as scary anymore.

 

[Pitchblack]

I really fear the bow of wrecks in bad vis. I have no clue of why but so it is.
Just picturing searching for a wreck along the bottom in bad vis makes me shiver! I know it sounds wierd but nothing scares me more, I mean the rest I can still do something about even if it's currents, equipment or buddys but this one stays and does not go away

Imagine swimming along the bottom searching for that world war 2 era steamer sunken by that sub with all of the thrilling story behind it and it's deep, dark and bad visibility and just as you look up again after looking at your compass heading you face that knife-sharp bow...EEK!

I've been in this situation a couple of times, in a matter of seconds I become an air-hog. But strange enough when the hole bow-thing is over and I'm on the deck of the wreck it's all good, everyone makes fun of my phobia but kind of understands it but every non-diver think that I might need a psychologist

 

[KaiHein]

My two biggest fears are getting trapped in something and getting "attacked" by a boat or other vehicle going overhead as I surface.

I just finished up my certification dives in Cancun last week and then finished out the week with two dives in one of the Cenotes down there. As nice as that dive was, there were a few spots where I thought the guide was getting ready to lead us into places I felt I would have to refuse to go. Turns out he just wanted my brother to take some pictures and show us where we can't go. I thought I would enjoy cave diving as I love crawling around in caves, but I guess its different when you realize you have a very finite source of air. Now I have to find something else about diving that I want to do as looking at reefs will only keep me intersted for so long before the newness of it wears off, but that is a topic for a different post.

As for the boat thing, I have come to rely on certain senses, like hearing and vision, for telling where dangerous things are and these don't seem to function quite the same underwater. I can hear boats that I can't see and they sound like they are directly above me. I knew this going in, but it still brings a certain uneasyness with it.