Bad Experience with Scuba Lessons - Advice?

PenguiN wrote:
> I'm getting the feeling that a lot of you don't understand the issue
> here.
>
> Going too fast wasn't the problem, as we could have taken him up on
> the extra lessons to catch up.

Ok, you spent alot of time saying how "brisk" things were going. Now
you say you could have done the extra lessons. So it was pointless to
bring up how fast things were progressing because a resolution to that
already existed. You intended to paint a picture of him as someone who
was uncaring of your concerns.

> The problem was that we felt he was ENDANGERING US RECKLESSLY.
>
> We had only talked briefly about equalization. We had no practice at
> all doing it. Without making sure that all the students could actually
> do it, he sent us all down 10 feet in a rapid surface dive manouver.

You won't know at the surface if the technique works.

> Now, according to what HE said, and what some people on this NG have
> said, some people *can* rupture their eardrums in 4-8 feet of pool
> water if they don't equalize.
>
> This is NOT an issue of "pace." This is an issue of SAFETY.

The instructor demonstrated a breath hold surface dive in a 10 foot pool
and had the students mirror the demo and attempt to equalize...and you
are mainly upset that he put you in danger of bursting your ear drums by
doing this, and this is why you want to give it up?

1) Use common sense, if you can't equalize, do NOT continue to descend,
head for the surface. Maybe the instructor should have mentioned it,
but it just seems so much like common sense and self preservation. He
is not asking anyone to burst their ear drums.

2) Sure, it is POSSIBLE to rupture your eardrum in a 10 foot pool.
YES, the greatest pressure shift is near the surface. But, go to any
public pool and watch everyone jumping in off the dive boards or head
first off the edge. Many people touch bottom with their hands when they
dive this way. Most of them don't know anything about equalizing and
have no idea they can burst their ear drum. Yet, unless they already
have a problem with their ears, their risk of bursting an ear drum is
minimal. I mean can you imagine the pool scene if everyone burst an ear
drum when they dove in? What is more likely to happen is that the
tympanic membrane will be stretched and some of the tiny capillaries in
it may bleed into the membrane as a result. It might feel like your ear
is "full" afterwards and it goes away as the tiny hemorrages get
absorbed. Think of a bruised eardrum, this is likely what you get if you
don't equalize as well and often as needed. I don't want to minimize the
risks, but lets not go off the deep end with them, either. Many of us
didn't know how to equalize until we felt that pressure. If you feel
the pressure, your eardrum is being stretched and you could start
bleeding in those little capillaries if you don't relieve the pressure.
It is a signal to do something. You equalize or you ascend, you do
not continue to go down.

3) We were cautioned so much not to blow hard when we were told how to
clear that initially, I couldn't clear either. In fact, I believe I
learned the skill only when I put on full scuba gear and fully submerged
in the pool. People who can move their jaw, hold their tongue to the
roof of their mouth and swallow, yawn, or whatever to equalize are out
there. However, sometimes I gotta pinch and blow or the clearing just
doesn't happen. It is one technique that usually works for me when the
others don't. There are alot of reasons people have difficulty
equalizing and some of them are just individual physical attributes.
Yes, it would have been nice if he taught all the ways possible to
clear. Instead, he only showed the most usual beginners way to do it.

4) You need to practice and read on your own. I was fortunate to have a
pool at the shop where I certified, but any bit of water should work for
simple things like mask clear and any public pool or body of water can
work for equalizing on a surface dive. You are being shown a skill. It
is really up to you to practice until you feel comfortable with it.
Even if, or after, you certify - you will be responsible to perfect your
own skills. You won't have perfect weighting, perfect buoyancy, perfect
anything immediately after certifying. You will make some mistakes and
you will learn from them or you will choose to give up. Diving and its
inherent risk is not for everyone. It is as safe a sport as YOU make it.


>
> When I took the resort course, the first time we tried equalizing was
> with our regulators in our mouths, so we could go down a few feet at a
> time and make sure we got it down. Someone in an older message on this
> NG said she teaches her students to equalize by having them slide down
> the bottom of the pool at their own paces.
>
> This guy had *everyone* just shoot down 10 feet from the get-go. EVEN
> AFTER MY FRIEND COMPLAINED THAT SHE COULDN'T EQUALIZE HE HAD HER GO
> DOWN AGAIN WITH VERY LITTLE ADDITIONAL ADVICE.

Oh, so he did make some additional suggestions.

> And she did feel sharp pain in her ears. No, she didn't "surface
> immediately" because she was DOING WHAT THE INSTRUCTOR TOLD HER TO DO.
> Don't blame the student for the instructor's mistake!!

Thinking for oneself, logically and clearly, is the one skill I most
value in a dive buddy. Taking responsibility for ones own actions is
another.

Here is rule number one for me and my dive buddy:
"Anyone can end a dive at anytime no questions asked." If at anytime
you feel you can't handle what is going on, even just a bad feeling you
can't shake, you always have that option open to you. I have never used
the rule and my dive buddy used it once "on a bad feeling" The dive was
ended for no particular reason, no questions asked. The gist of the
rule is "If you don't feel safe, don't do it". No matter who or what
compells you.

> We found out later that she couldn't get the valsalva manouver to
> work, but the ... i think toynbee manouver? ... where you close your
> mouth and nose and swallow, worked great for her.

Did it work at depth, or just on the surface? If it is only on the
surface, it may not necessarily work for her at depth.

Now don't you think
> this is something the INSTRUCTOR should have told us?

Perhaps he should have, but one attempt at a valsalva doesn't mean it
won't work on the second attempt. Many people don't "get it" the very
first time.

No, we had to
> figure it out reading the book. And he didn't get the books to us
> until the 2nd lesson, so don't blame it on us again by saying we
> should have read ahead of time.

Of course, nothing is your fault.

Ok, now you are pissed off. Better pissed off than dead. Do not hand
responsibilty for your own personal safety to anyone. You are the one
that cares most about yourself and you need to take responsibility.
Bringing out a laundry list of everything the instructor did wrong will
do you no good if you surface under a boat going 30mph. You have the
books, you have internet access, you have a library, you have this
newsgroup, you have an instructor with 30 years of experience. Learn
whatever you can from whatever source you can. There is no "one-stop
shop" where you learn everything you need to know. If there is, someone
please clue me in.

>
> Finally I don't see why "the majority of students thought it was ok"
> will mean the complaint is null and void.

I didn't make the comment, but I'll comment on it.
Teachers teach so that the "majority" of students will "get it".
If you "don't get it", you need to stay after school.

"ansate" <ansate@netzero.net> wrote in message
news:96a8fea0.0408140910.2fcec1a2@posting.google.c om...
(snip)> and b) having to go through significantly harder and potentially
more
> physically dangerous drills before i'd be able to actually get the
> basics down.

What are these physically dangerous drills you refer to?

>as ken mentioned, the class was simply too fast-paced to
> be able to practice any manuever more than twice.

How many people were in this class? What usually happens is that the
instructor slowly demonstrates, and then has you do the skill after him/her.
For example, partial filling of mask and then emptying it. Usually, an
instructor would not move on from you until you had done it correctly, at
least once. Perhaps, the instructor would leave you and go on to another
student and then come back to you. Was there a DM in the water with you
guys, or only the instructor?

>because of this i
> would not feel comfortable or safe "moving on" to drills that
> incorporated multiple manuevers without first being able to know what
> i was doing with the individual ones comprising the drills.

What multimple manuevers do you refer to?

>
(snip)>
> > Right off the bat in lecture he seemed to be going too fast. Buzzing
through
> > material, with barely any time to write it down
>
There is no question, that you should have had the books first, so that you
could read ahead. However, it may have been a bit better to just listen and
attempt to absorb, rather than writing everything down. After all, you
can't read your notes once you are in the water and you did have the book
coming.

> it was physically impossible at times for my hand to keep up writing
> this stuff down. if we'd had the books the first day and actually been
> assigned chapters to read, it would have perhaps been easier for me to
> filter what needed to be written down and what was already in the book
> for me to read. but that's neither here nor there. i've been to
> college. i've taken notes. i know the basic idea. when someone is
> talking so fast you can't actually hear individual words clearly
> enough to jot them down = problem.

Again, it is easier to absorb the spoken material, if you aren't trying to
transcribe it all at the same time.

>
> > In the pool, things seemed rushed. Before we had even gotten a chance
> > to try on flippers he had started talking to everyone. Before we had
> > finished fitting our masks it was time to go in the pool.
>
> he was kind of a jerk when i asked him to demonstrate mask fitting
> again. i'm not going to go into details, but i felt he was rather
> belligerent.

Mask fitting? You mean, like holding the mask to your face and gently
sucking in a bit of air to see if there is a reasonably good seal, the right
size for your face?

>as far as fins go, by the time we were done getting
> everything else he was ready to start lecturing and was impatient. we
> were told to just grab some we felt would fit. there were a ton of
> fins there. we did what we could. come second lecture, we noticed
> everyone but us had adjustable straps on their fins. we were the only
> two who did not. when i mentioned this to him he said we'd be fine.
> however...

At this point, fins are the least of your concerns, and I suspect the least
of his as well.

>
> maybe it's just because it was my first time ever using fins but my
> feet started cramping up before i'd gotten halfway down the pool
> (flutter kicking) in them. in addition i'd sprained my ankle last fall
> and it hadn't acted up in months and suddenly there was the pain
> again. i'm wondering if it would have been easier for me if the fins
> had fit better (ie had straps i could adjust)? here i'm not sure.

I'm sure that had they fit better, that would have been some help. Have you
snorkelled with fins before?

>
> the first class, then, wasn't the worst thing ever. what i was
> concerned about at that point was that the instructor seemed to be
> extremely lousy at answering my questions. either he would act all
> impatient when i had any or he would pretend they weren't relevant
> somehow and shrug them off.

He had a number of students in his class and only a limited amount of time
to get the students all of the first class info out, and then pool time,
which is important to all. If the instructor spent 15 minutes explaining
every minute detail individually to each student, then he would run out of
pool time. I remember my first lessons and because there was so much
commotion and so much gear that was unfamiliar to me, it all seemed a bit
discombobulating at first. But it came together.

>
> the second lesson to me was infinitely worse. this time we had BC's
> to put on. luckily he picked them out for us and we didn't have to go
> through the nightmare of pretending to know how to size. i was
> curious about the straps, particularly the velcro abdomen strap which
> seemed to be too loose or too tight or too bulky no matter how i
> fiddled with it. so i asked him what i felt to be a straightup
> question: "so should the strap here be loose or tight? what's better?"
> he responded: "trust me, it fits." i said "no, i mean, should i be
> tightening it so it's snug or wearing it more loose?" he repeated in a
> snappy tone "trust me, it fits it fits it fits it fits" as he actually
> walked AWAY from me and left the room for a few minutes. i said as he
> was leaving, "that wasn't even my question." he didn't hear me
> apparently.

Your BCD doesn't need to fit you like a new shirt. If you are a medium and
you have on a medium BCD, then you probably want the velcro cumberbund to do
up, not snug but not loose. Just so's it's laying on you. When the BCD
fills with air, it will feel tighter, so you don't want it too tight in the
first place. Also, at depth, you can tighten it up further, once you are
more comfortable in the water. My BCD, has the velcro cumberbund and one
little strap across the front. The front strap, is always very loose. It
doesn't need to be tight on my BCD. The cumberbunds can usually be adjusted
(while on the surface) to get a better fit. It is unfortunate that he
didn't have the time to show you this. However, you should have been able
to play with it after the class. Or you could go into the shop at some other
time and have one of the shop monkeys show you how they can be adjusted on a
variety of different BCs.

>
> behind me i could hear the students muttering to themselves and
> nervously laughing. according to ken, one of them had said to another,
> "wow, don't ask HIM any questions."

Who knows? Everyone has a bad day. Maybe he was hungover or had a fight
with his wife.

> the very first couple minutes of the lecture, the teacher had
> explicitly said, "i am going to cut off your questions more often than
> not because you know what? i've heard them all before and i can give
> you the answer before you even finish. it's quicker that way, it saves
> time."

He's probably right about having heard all of the questions before, though
he may not have been correctly anticipating each individual question.

>
> so here we are in a safety course and the teacher has already
> established the fact that he's not even going to fully listen to any
> individual concerns we have; he's going to assume that he knows
> exactly what we're asking before the full sentence is even out of our
> mouths and he's going to give us some response of some sort. great.
> you can see how well it worked with my question above. and you can see
> the students' reaction to that kind of teaching. he's basically at
> that point made a student afraid to ask anything for fear of being
> talked down to. in my case i was just frustrated that he didn't even
> come close to answering my questions. this is not the only example,
> but just one of many. he would consistently do this when i asked
> things.

How many questions were you asking?

>
> another example had to do again with the fins. i wanted to know if
> there was a good technique for turning around when we came to the edge
> of the pool after doing a practice lap. i asked him "what is a good
> way to turn around?" can you get much simpler than that? so this time
> he responded with a joke to my straightforward question: "oh, just put
> on your left turn signal." then he again swam away from me before i
> could tell him i really was having trouble. this was another pattern
> with him. it's like he doesn't want to find out someone has more to
> ask or that he got the question wrong.

Frankly, I'm not sure what's the best way to turn around at the end of the
pool either, but this won't be an issue in OW. There is no end of the pool.
Just turn around how ever you can. It is not necessary to be graceful at
this stage. Just push yourself off with your hands if you want to.

>
> > Well, except that we didn't ever get to "repeating each manouver 5
> > more times." The old manouvers we learned monday were completely in
> > the past -- even though we hadn't gotten about half of them down at
> > all yet.
>
> this is true. it never even came up. so much for promises.
>
> the example of the face-first dive was what ken was really focussing
> on in his post, and i'm surprised that more people don't have an issue
> with this. how can an instructor tell us about ten times that it's
> very important to go slowly down equalizing all the way and that you
> can injure your eardrum at just FOUR feet depth, and then tell us to
> go relatively quickly head first to the bottom of a TEN foot pool when
> equalizing hasn't been practiced? forget whether or not you think it's
> unsafe for a moment: he's just attempted to scare us about equalizing
> and he really thinks we're just going to forget that and do this
> manuever out of the blue with no apprehension? that struck me as odd.
>
> now, i had trouble equalizing my ears. that is true. i did not have
> acute pain. i could just still feel pressure. i've been to the bottom
> of a ten-foot pool many a time before i even knew (or cared) about
> equalization and i have never burst my eardrums. i did not have a real
> fear of injuring my eardrums. it simply pissed me off that when i told
> him i had trouble he didn't even suggest i practice it. i went down
> again trying to practice it and it didn't work. it would have been
> nice to have time to go to a shallower spot and go down slower but
> again i run into multiple problems:
>
> a) not enough time
> b) i'm wearing a BC and fins, two new pieces of equipment i've never
> swam with before. i don't even know how to turn around in fins
> properly.
> c) i'm holding my breath, which means not enough time UNDERWATER to be
> mucking around. yeah, we were using snorkels. we had not done
> regulators yet. i hear that's lesson three and i hear it's a hell of a
> lot easier to equalize when you aren't worrying about your air supply.

I had been a bit confused earlier about why he would be having you go down
fast, head first, but I now see that you were snorkelling and not on scuba.
I have a hard time equalizing when snorkelling too, but it is much easier on
scuba, because I have an air supply.

>
> so yes, i did the drills. i felt comfortable enough with the safety of
> my eardrums to do so. but i am not going to be able to dive 30 feet
> without knowing how to equalize. also, how was the instructor to know
> i'd be "fine" doing it? my eardrums don't rupture but some people will
> have, or have had that problem. some people are going to be more
> intimidated by his teaching style and force themselves to do a drill
> even if they feel the sharp pain; how is he going to handle that? we
> just feel that it would have been much better to do it safer and more
> slowly. and it would have been nice for him to address my concerns.
> he didn't know how much it hurt or didn't hurt. i never told him. his
> advice was to "try it again." DANGEROUS (in my mind).
>
> someone suggested that we talk with him about this and see if he
> couldn't go slower or suggest other alternatives. we actually did
> speak to him after the second class. we mentioned that we felt he was
> going too fast for us; he replied that his class is the normal pace of
> a scuba class. we mentioned that we didn't feel comfortable doing
> many of the manuevers and i specifically mentioned that most of the
> time i could not follow what he was teaching. he then said that it
> must be a problem with me because "everyone else was getting it" (how
> would he really know, the way he teaches?). he then accused ken of
> "dragging" me into the sport when i didn't really want to do it, asked
> in a roundabout way if i had a learning disability, and told me he'd
> seen my problems before and that i was not unique.

He does sound a bit grumpy. :^) But then again, maybe you were peppering
him with so many questions, he was having trouble delivering the info he
wanted you to have.

>
> he could not ever accept that it might just be a clash between his
> teaching style and my learning style. not once did this even cross his
> mind.

Well, he is a scuba instructor, not a trained college professor.

>
> asking whether we should take this course again really to me is more
> of a rhetorical question. OF COURSE we ain't goin back. i don't feel
> safe learning from this guy at a SAFETY course! asking whether or not
> this is a normal way to progress in the class seems to garner few
> responses, but i'm wondering specifically: how did you learn? was it
> like this, where you couldn't even absorb the material because it was
> going so fast?

The first couple of classes seemed fast, once we were at the pool portion
but not when we were in the classroom.

>where if you didn't get the manuever or feel very
> comfortable about it, too bad, time's up, on to more dangerous or
> complicated techniques? i don't really believe that everyone else in
> the class "got it" and i didn't; i sensed a degree of discomfort
> there. i remember one other girl besides me has glasses, and when i
> mentioned to the guy i couldn't see the hand signals he was
> demonstrating as we sat there with masks on, she only spoke up after
> that: "oh by the way i couldn't see you either." do you think she
> would have spoken up at all? c'mon, you know how students are. they're
> generally afraid to look like asses or incur the teacher's wrath.

Well, it certainly isn't his fault that she didn't speak up earlier. I had
a similar problem, so I took it upon myself to make it known and then got
closer to the instructor. That worked out fine.

>
> by the way, any suggestions of more "patient" scuba instruction in the
> boston area (where we are) is much appreciated. i'll pay any price.
> that class didn't knock the scuba bug out of me yet.

Glad to hear that. Now that you have your book, read it and absorb it.
Perhaps if you aren't so concerned about the spoken material, you'll be able
to be more comfortable during the skills portion.

In message <6e01aab2.0408140744.41966d89@posting.google.com >, PenguiN
<taylok2@alum.rpi.edu> writes
>Finally I don't see why "the majority of students thought it was ok"
>will mean the complaint is null and void. How is this *not* reckless
>and dangerous to send students *rapidly* down to a depth where people
>*can and have* burst their eardrums without making sure *everyone* is
>comfortable with equalizing???


It might have been me who said this:

What I meant was that if the majority thought it was not OK, you could
approach him as a group and ask him to modify things for you as a group.
This may have avoided the need for 1 to 1's.

If most thought it was OK, then the 1 to 1's may have been appropriate.

It would seem from yours & your buddys' post that you will not be going
back to this guy - That is probably the best thing you can do.

The instructor who taught me occasionally heard me "moaning" about
something or other, and he was extremely concerned that I was either not
happy with him, or the school, when, in actual fact, I was merely
"moaning" because some of the skills and activities are somewhat
challenging, take a bit of thinking about, and occasionally a bit
painful and hard work. I explained this to him several times, and that
he need not be concerned with my opinion of him or the school.

I am saying this because there will be an instructor out there who is
sensitive to your needs, but you need to find them. Mine was in Madeira,
so probably not much use for you in Boston.

My other half did her open water with Camel Dive in Sharm el Sheikh, (I
wasnt there). She said the instructor was a real "tyrant" who made her
and other students do things over and over until they got the idea. She
liked him and appreciated his efforts by the end of the course <g>

--
Richard Faulkner

On 14 Aug 2004 16:38:01 -0700, ansate@netzero.net (ansate) wrote:

>
>if that's what it takes in order for me to understand the material
>fully enough to at least feel relatively safe and comfortable learning
>from the person, then yes, i guess that's what i need. i firmly
>believe that someone who actually answers questions would be adequate
>though.

You should have been provided the book well in advance of the class
and you should have read the book cover to cover at least once and
been able to re-read it for reinforcement before the class work.

You are correct to question the instructor's methods. Depending on his
age and personal outlook regarding scuba, he may actually believe that
it takes pain and toughing it out to get it done. He may have
actually learned it that way in the Navy Seals or something and thinks
that is what recreational scuba is all about.

A scuba instructor either wants his students to learn the material or
he wants to fail those that can't handle it the first couple of times
in the pool. This is how they do it in the Navy. "Here recruit, this
is how you equalize, see? Now dive in there to 20 feet and bring back
that 10 pound lead weight! You have 60 seconds." "...you failed! We
can't use you. Go back to momma and tell her you weren't good enough.
But before you do that, we have a few S-jobs in the Navy for grunts
like you before your tour is over."

If you are trying to teach safe diving you go out of your way to make
sure the students understand the reasons and the methods for doing
things safely. Pain while diving is not allowed. Anyone who thinks
you should just work through the pain is a hazard to himself and his
buddy. Recreational diving is a SPORT not a military assault. If you
cannot equalize you should ascend, if you can't equalize by ascending
and trying the maneuver again, abort the dive.

You should raise your concerns with the instructor privately and see
if he will understand and work with your need to know the proper
methods and reasons and to feel comfortable in the water and with your
skills. Certification means you have practiced your skills a minimum
number of times under different conditions to the satisfaction of the
instructor and demonstrated to him and to yourself that you can do
them. If you are not comfortable you should not be certified. There
will always be some anxiety in class and for the first
post-certification dives. The first dozen dives or so will be better,
but you shouldn't feel rushed to get there.

If he can't understand this you should seek a better dive instructor.

greatviz <greatviz@netscapeNOTSPAM.net> wrote in message news:<zNsTc.34415$wM.1110@twister.tampabay.rr.com> ...

> Ok, you want a warm and fuzzy instructor. Maybe you will find one to
> suit your taste.

if that's what it takes in order for me to understand the material
fully enough to at least feel relatively safe and comfortable learning
from the person, then yes, i guess that's what i need. i firmly
believe that someone who actually answers questions would be adequate
though.

> Are you sure this is about safety? Or do you just find the guy offensive?

i guess it's both.

> Making left turns isn't a safety issue.

it was an EXAMPLE of a TREND. my god. although i think pulling my
muscles trying to awkwardly do some ill-advised turn-around manuever
would have kind of sucked, don't you?

> The surface breath hold dives on the second lesson in the pool is exactly
> what I did. I couldn't equalize until the 3rd lesson on full scuba.

thanks. that's the information i was looking for!

> My sense is that you just think the guy is an asshole and you want to learn
> from someone else. That is ok if that is what you want. Do you feel you need
> to turn it into a safety issue to validate your reason for not wanting to
> continue?

hah! everyone wants to be some breakthrough psychologist these days.
you do understand this is the same guy who would be taking me 30 feet
underwater and not just 10, yes? if he won't answer my questions now
what makes me think he ever will?

and yes, i do think he's an asshole, and that doesn't help. but he
could be a helpful asshole and that would most likely have worked. it
would have been annoying, but i wouldn't have felt so lost.

> clear as we progressed. Every lesson we learned new things. It was too
> fast for some and too slow for others depending on the skill of that day.

did you repeat skills the next lesson at all?

> You will experience pain in your
> ears, pain in your sinuses, bloody noses, cold, strong desire to urinate (if
> in a drysuit), sore lungs, mask squeeze, sunburn, cramps, miscellaneous cuts
> and scrapes and stings from various marine organisms that take a month to
> heal. I've often experienced all that on a single dive.

Wow. Almost all things that they teach you how to avoid in the basic
course! You must have been a model student.

At any rate, I feel bad for your dive buddy.

Ken

>From: taylok2@alum.rpi.edu (PenguiN)
>Date: 8/13/2004 2:29 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <6e01aab2.0408131029.3c4c3557@posting.google.com >
>
>Hi Everyone,
>
>I'm not going to name names, as I'm not trying to slander anyone, but
>just get advice. But I've just done two lessons with a certain scuba
>training program, with a friend of mine, and we're thinking of
>dropping out.

Why not, if this guy is so reckless?


Popeye
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice
letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

"Geoff" <geoff@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:3v9th0pdjbtco2g1uaujrdsgr8ghagdhd7@4ax.com...

> >We dive because it's cool down there. You will experience pain in your
> >ears, pain in your sinuses, bloody noses, cold, strong desire to urinate
(if
> >in a drysuit), sore lungs, mask squeeze, sunburn, cramps, miscellaneous
cuts
> >and scrapes and stings from various marine organisms that take a month to
> >heal. I've often experienced all that on a single dive. I've been
conked
> >on the head plenty of times and had a tank dropped on my foot twice.
I've
> >seen much worse happen to others. People die in this "sport" and I've
seen
> >that too.

> Macho, macho man (macho man)

Macho? That was me whining. Why do you think I haven't been diving locally
for a while?

And I forgot to mention the back aches, smashed fingers, hangovers,
microbubble-induced lethargy, bad hearing, bad coffee, and hangovers.

Ever had a bad case of the runs on a slow, slow day-long dive boat in Mexico
when the head broke within the first hour?

On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 17:28:03 -0700, "Greg Mossman" <mossman@qnet.com>
wrote:

>"Geoff" <geoff@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
>news:3v9th0pdjbtco2g1uaujrdsgr8ghagdhd7@4ax.com.. .
>
>> >We dive because it's cool down there. You will experience pain in your
>> >ears, pain in your sinuses, bloody noses, cold, strong desire to urinate
>(if
>> >in a drysuit), sore lungs, mask squeeze, sunburn, cramps, miscellaneous
>cuts
>> >and scrapes and stings from various marine organisms that take a month to
>> >heal. I've often experienced all that on a single dive. I've been
>conked
>> >on the head plenty of times and had a tank dropped on my foot twice.
>I've
>> >seen much worse happen to others. People die in this "sport" and I've
>seen
>> >that too.
>
>> Macho, macho man (macho man)
>
>Macho? That was me whining. Why do you think I haven't been diving locally
>for a while?
>
>And I forgot to mention the back aches, smashed fingers, hangovers,
>microbubble-induced lethargy, bad hearing, bad coffee, and hangovers.
>
>Ever had a bad case of the runs on a slow, slow day-long dive boat in Mexico
>when the head broke within the first hour?
>

hehehe,

Oh in that case... Whiner! Get some macho on dude!
Tough it out! Wadda think this is a resort or something? :)

Yes, colds and sinus squeezes, sunburn and all the casualties of
exposure to the elements and bad, bad coffee chefs can be a problem.
You're just not supposed to be diving while sustaining them.

IMO, they have a hit-and-run DI who wants to concede as little time as
possible to his students for their money. He promises no extra charge,
but will he deliver on that promise?

I also wonder if there are not some other students in that class who
may be rushing to complete their certifications against a deadline.
They might be whining about getting it done so they can be ready for
that diving vacation. Perhaps these posters will be more comfortable
with this instructor in another group of students.

"Popeye NCAT3" <buzcutt454@aol.comByteMe> wrote in message
news:20040814205553.19052.00003986@mb-m06.aol.com...
> >From: taylok2@alum.rpi.edu (PenguiN)
>
> >Wow. Almost all things that they teach you how to avoid in the basic
> >course! You must have been a model student.
>
> Least he can clear his fuckin ears.

Yeah, well, sure . . now . . .