Decided to Take Scubadiving Lessons

[FSOL]

Hi everyone,

My love for the reef, and having scubadived once in Bora Bora, made me sign up for certification classes.

It's about a month long (classroom, pool dives, ocean dives).
I'm familiar w/ the basics, but I want to learn everything and even do night dives sometime in the future.

I'd appreciate any advice/tips some of you experts may have for a beginner. For the class we will rent the gear, but eventually I need to buy some good quality/trustworthy gear.

Also, that time I dove in bora bora, I had really bad ear aches for two days. They were very sensitive and just painful (we only went 30ft deep). I hope my body will get used to that and I won't have ear aches anymore.

Thanks

 

[Glove]

For starters the pain you had n your ears is not good. You should never feel pain, if you do you waited to long to start equalizing. As a rule, as soon as your head goes under the water you need start equalizing and continue about every 1-2 feet as you decend.

*If you do not know how to do this, close your mouth, pinch your nose and blow GENTLY. When you hear or feel your ears 'pop' then the pressure inside your mellon is equal to the pressure outside your mellon.

*If you blow too hard, it is very possible to rupture your eardrum.

The reason we have to do this is because we have airspaces in our heads that needs to be adjusted as we go deeper. The water pressure is literaly squeazing your eardrums into your head (opposite of what happens when we go up in an airplane- then our ear drums are bulging because the air pressure in the plane is less than the pressure in your head).

There are many effects of pressure changes on our bodies when we dive. Taking the basic open water class will introduce you to the physics of diving and hopefully you can get your ears working better.

 

[FSOL]

I did do the nose pinching and blowing gently and heard my ears pop, but I was afraid to blow too hard. Sometimes I'd feel the pain but my ears wouldn't pop.
I hope this time during the classes I get more familiar w/ the process and not have pains.

 

[Reefugee]

I am a relatively new diver, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

During my first OW dive, I have problem controlling my descent and thus was unable to equalize my ears properly. After the second dive, I had a massive headache. However, the following weekend, when we did our 3rd through 6th dives, I had much better control and didn't have any ear aches at all. Also - if your ears start hurting, ascend a few feet and equalize.

A few more things that I think is worth mentioning. Make sure you hydrate yourself really well before diving. I drank a lot of Gatorade. Also - if you are diving cold water, stretch your calves before the dive. I was also told to eat bananas will also help prevent cramps.

I assume that you will need to buy some personal gears (snorkel, fins, mask, booties). For me, I went with split fins. I heard that in calm water, it easier to use. I have the ScubaPro Twin Jets. Other good split fins include the Apollo Bio fins. For masks, get a low volume mask. For masks - you want to purchase it at your LDS. Fit is very important with masks. Both my fiancee and I each went through 3 pairs of masks before we found the one that didn't leak. Oh - also we didn't consider any that had purge valves. I figured I would rather learn on a regular mask because they are much more common. Booties - get boots with hard sole. Snorkel - as a friend of mine said, it just a tube you breathe through. As far as he was concerned, it could have been a bamboo stick.

Like you, I took a month long class (PADI National Geographic OW), and it was nice that I had so much pool time. I think that made me a better diver than most people who take the two weekends courses.

Good luck with you class!

Minh

 

[FSOL]

Thanks Minh,

I also purchased the split fins. They are from this brand called X-Pert Zoom.

I'll definitely take the advice of food, cuz I am very grumpy when my food/water situation is not right, and it will make it less fun to dive.

The PADI instructor told us that whatever doesn't fit right, the store will take back and let you try a new one on, so if my mask/boots/fins don't feel right, I have the option of trading w/ new ones.