Yo.

[creamofwheat]

To my fellow cream of wheat fans.....YOU ROCK! Most people tend to think me weird for liking the stuff, but really it's absolutely delicious.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

Anth...I am studying English. You?

Just got home from my 5th lesson and confined dive. Of course I love it. I always do! We wrote the test tonight, and I am pleased to announce that I got a whopping 96%. I got one of the RDP questions wrong...I wrote the ABT instead of the TBT. Sigh. Silly mistake, really, as i calculated the whole thing out and came up with the right answer, then decided to write down ther ABT instead. *shrugs* Ah well! My other mistake was writing down "5" twice when I meant to write down a number "4". Ha. Brilliance at it's finest. But yes, I am super excited for our open water dives this weekend...I am bouncing in my seat just thinking about it. Hurrah!

but that is it from me for now. I have to stop myself before I continue on forever...because i will. My mother will attest to that.

 

[El Orans]

Hello CoW,

welcome (Scub)aBoard! :happywave

Laurens

 

[nessum]

Welcome to Scubaboard & BC diving! It can be a little chilly, but it's so very worth it.

 

[creamofwheat]

oops, double post...carry on.

 

[creamofwheat]

I am going on my first two OW dives bright and early tomorrow morning! Gaaaah I am so excited. I shall be back with full reports, I am sure.

 

[shakes91]

Best of luck and have fun!

 

[creamofwheat]

Ok, I just realized the initials of my screenname spell cow. Ha. That amuses me.

Anyway, we had our first dives today. Everything that could have gone wrong on a first dive...did. we all took it in good humour though. I will write more details later, but for now I have a question, as we are going out again tomorrow.

Basically, I need to conquer a fear by tomorrow morning. See, in the pool, I have no trouble flooding and clearning my mask, removing my mask, etc. But in the ocean, when we had to fully flood and clear our mask, I started freaking out that I couldn't breathe...I had a mini panic attack under the water at about 24ft. It was really scary. Tomorrow, we have to remove our masks completely. And I am terrified. My brain is like "oh no! There is water surrounding my face! I can't breathe!!!" And I start panicking and choking as I try to brteathe through my nose automatically. HOW do I get over this by tomorrow morning. It freaks me out to no end. *shudders*

 

[halocline]

You can practice breathing without a mask with your face in the water by standing in a pool with a snorkel but no mask and gently lowering your face in the water while breathing through the snorkel. Then you can try the same with a regulator. It will help you get used to the idea of breathing while your nose is in water; that's the tough part. Another thing to do is hold your nose (again, best to practice in the shallow end of a pool) and gradually release it while continuing to breathe. At least that helped me.

If you're in the ocean and must take your mask off, and you're really uncomfortable breathing, the nose-holding will really help initially. It might not be a PADI aproved technique, so maybe check with your instructor about it. Good luck tomorrow!

 

[creamofwheat]

Yay! I am all certified now!!

Mattboy, thanks for the advice. I took it, by the way. Before our last dive, I asked the instructor if I could practice on the surface with my snorkel, and I did, and all was well underwater. I just had to remind myself that I could still breathe and that I was fine.

Our dives were really neat. We even explored around a wreck on our last one. We saw lots of cool sea life, including lingcod, crabs, sea stars, perch, sea cucumbers, shrimp, and tons of anemonies. It was really, really cool. I admit it...I'm hooked.

 

[jeckyll]

C.O.W. Congrats on getting you OW cert.

One of the people in my OW course freaked out in the OW certification dives. I think alot of it has to do with the temperature, it's simply a shock.

It's not a cheap hobby, but it's alot of fun

Bjorn