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AtrusBatleth

Skydiving to SCUBA

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GordianKnot


To the OP: where are you doing your open water dives? The "take off your mask, put it back on, and then clear it" part probably is the most stressful for a lot of people (it was for me), but it's over pretty quickly and then you never have to do it again.



Hahahaha, yea until it happens for real. That's like saying you only need to practice EPs in the ground harness and after that you never have to do it again. I got my mask caught on something when I was 60' down once and lost it. You think clearing the mask sucks. That was a party compared to losing my mask 60' down. Also, I've had my mask flood while inside of a confined space 100' down. If you dont like practicing clearing it in a pool, you're really not going to like doing it on the ocean floor.

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GordianKnot

Yeah, having to plan how much fun you're going to have on the weekend/vacation gets really tough ;)

To the OP: where are you doing your open water dives? The "take off your mask, put it back on, and then clear it" part probably is the most stressful for a lot of people (it was for me), but it's over pretty quickly and then you never have to do it again.

Tropical diving is pretty relaxed and there's lots of wild stuff to see underwater. Cold water/drysuit diving is a little less relaxed but still fun and there are some pretty epic things that just happen to be at higher latitudes. Hang in there, you'll be fine!



Now that I've started reading through the diver manual and understand what's involved, I actually don't think I will have a problem with the mask off part; then again I didn't think I would have any problem just breathing normal a foot below water, but I did. I won't know until I try, but I am definitely going to try. It just might take me a little longer than most, just like skydiving. :)
I'll be doing my open water dives at the Crosby Mine pits in MN next summer, at least that's the plan. Travel for some tropical diving sounds way more appealing to me, but I just don't have the travel budget for this winter.
Max Peck
What's the point of having top secret code names, fellas, if we ain't gonna use 'em?

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AtrusBatleth

***Yeah, having to plan how much fun you're going to have on the weekend/vacation gets really tough ;)

To the OP: where are you doing your open water dives? The "take off your mask, put it back on, and then clear it" part probably is the most stressful for a lot of people (it was for me), but it's over pretty quickly and then you never have to do it again.

Tropical diving is pretty relaxed and there's lots of wild stuff to see underwater. Cold water/drysuit diving is a little less relaxed but still fun and there are some pretty epic things that just happen to be at higher latitudes. Hang in there, you'll be fine!



Now that I've started reading through the diver manual and understand what's involved, I actually don't think I will have a problem with the mask off part; then again I didn't think I would have any problem just breathing normal a foot below water, but I did. I won't know until I try, but I am definitely going to try. It just might take me a little longer than most, just like skydiving. :)
I'll be doing my open water dives at the Crosby Mine pits in MN next summer, at least that's the plan. Travel for some tropical diving sounds way more appealing to me, but I just don't have the travel budget for this winter.Clearing the mask is hard at first for some because it's rather technique driven. A small error in technique can make the entire process completely ineffective. For example, in the first 50+ attempts I tried clearing the mask, it would not work because I would stop exhaling before releasing the mask against my face again. So I would basically clear the mask and then immediately reflood it as soon as I stopped exhaling. I dident know this at the time because I couldent see anything. The trick was to place the mask against my face before I stop exhaling, and look up, not down, while doing it. This solved the issue instantly. It's a rather minor thing that is not so obvious when practicing, but it made a drastic difference.

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Hello there! A topic I can't not comment on! B| I'm a scuba instructor, both NAUI and PADI (44415 and 263934 respectively).

As for the OP's initial comment, yeah it's different for everyone. For the students I had with similar issues, I would recommend practicing by putting their face in the shower stream and breathing through it for 30 or so seconds every day. Also, practice opening your eyes underwater in a pool and looking around. If you want to go hardcore, snort water in your nose. A lot of it is primal instinct, water+lungs = bad. Overcoming it and realizing that you can still breathe just fine with water on your face, in your mouth and in your nose is a "turning point" for a lot of people. The next part is "gear fear." If you don't trust your gear you'll never be comfortable. Same thing with skydiving. Learn the gear, get to where you can manipulate it blind, learn how it works, how it behaves, etc etc.

On a parallel topic, diving and skydiving in close proximity. I had a gaggle of skydiver scuba students including instructors, so I had to time their checkout dives with their skydives. Long story short, I called NAUI, PADI, and DAN. The takeaway was for altitudes exceeding 8,000ft, there is NO DATA. All the don't fly recommendations are based on commercial aircraft (pressurized to 8k). So if you have a computer that tells you don't fly for 4 hours, that means "don't fly at 8k ft for 4 hours." What we ended up deciding on that I and all of the students were comfortable with was 1 gap day. So you scuba on Thursday, take Friday off, then you can skydive on Saturday.

And because someone might ask, there was (as of like 6 years ago) no data suggesting scuba diving immediately after flying was deleterious. There are some anecdotal stories but they are insufficient for analysis or making recommendations.

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OldGregg



And because someone might ask, there was (as of like 6 years ago) no data suggesting scuba diving immediately after flying was deleterious. There are some anecdotal stories but they are insufficient for analysis or making recommendations.



Come on, that's silly, especially coming from an instructor. People have had decompression sickness from ascending only 2000'. There is a guy in this thread who even posted his own example. If 2000' can make you sick, what do you think 15k' would do?

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I was diving at Lake Pleasant here in AZ back in June and everything was going fine until I heard a very loud explosion from my dive buddy’s gear at 85 feet . There were bubbles everywhere like we were inside a champagne bottle and that second stage hose was flailing hard. The noise was intense as the compressed air rushed out. I held out my yellow safe second stage and he grabbed it like a snake strike. His eyes were huge behind the mask and panic was setting in fast. As he put my safe second in his mouth I noticed he spit out his own regulator and it sank to the bottom just below us. I was further stunned when he took off for the surface and had me at hose stretch pulling me at full speed by my yellow hose. As we came through 60 feet our computers were screaming like sirens to slow down and I was doing everything I possibly could to slow us down. We ascended from 85 to the surface on our second dive with 6 minutes left NDL after going to 125 feet over the rail out to the sunken speed boat. We were fortunate to not get nitrogen bubbling out of solution , air embolism , or just sick. I looked at him rather angry and asked WTF was that all about?? Turns out he had installed a swivel connector to reduce hose pull jaw fatigue on his Apeks regulator and FORGOT to tighten it with a wrench. I have found a new dive buddy:) For me it’s hop n pops on Saturday and Lake Pleasant Sunday for some scuba fun. Careful out there lol.

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