Quote:
Originally Posted by dalehall  Sounds fun Vegas.. What was causing your anxiety? Cold water, low viz or what? Breathing through it was perfect. I'm just wondering if you know what caused it.. |
I think it was the surface swim -- I thought I was rested before descending, but I think now I was still breathing hard, and then descending to 70', I believe I may have been hyperventilating a bit.
"instincts" told me (at 72') to pull this "thing" out of my mouth, and get this mask off my face so I could breath better!
I stayed calm, and recognized that was NOT the solution.
I checked my depth, closed my eyes for a minute, (used my hand to hold my reg in my mouth "just in case") and just BREATHED...checked my depth, still the same - good - signalled my buddy that I was "a little crazy/narced/anxiety and was going to ascend just a little".
He watched me close as I ascended to about 65'. stopped. closed my eyes for a second and just Breathed. checked depth - still the same - good. Still felt not-so-good, "instincts" yelling that
the SURFACE was where I wanted to be.
again....NOT the answer...stay calm....breath slowly and deeply...check depth. signal buddy again... up 10 more feet SLOWLY.
I crossed a thermocline and got up to 55'. I think the deep breathing, insistance on staying calm, and the slightly warmer temp got me feeling a little better.
I felt ok to follow along with the rest of the party -they all seemed a little confused and weren't going anywhere really anyway because..."wasn't that cabin cruiser right
here? where the hell did it go?"... kept them all from heading off in one direction or another for quite a bit.
As they finally picked a direction to go, and all came up about 10' to 15', so I took the opportunity to slowly cruise up to about 45' and hang about 15' - 20' above everybody. My buddy was not far below me, and one of the Divemasters-in-training was keeping an eye on me, and getting the "ok" signals from me every couple of minutes.
After some time at 45' I felt ALMOST back to normal...and finally could appreciate the "view" (rarely have I been able to see over 40' in our local lakes!). I still wasn't excited to see the fish like I normally am, but I certainly felt I was OK to go on.
As the group continued slow-sightseeing-swimming-around-ascent...so did I ... at 18' I leveled off, and let the rest meet me at that depth for the safety stop. After several more minutes we all went to the surface together.... and even seeing the surface swim ahead of me...I was pretty relieved to be there breathing the open air. (and keeping my mask ON just for good measure...well, and to keep from losing my contact lenses too! lol)
Ya, I think the exertion from the surface swim, it being only an hour after lunch, the HOT day (air temp 100 degrees) down through the thermoclines to water about 64 degrees at depth, and not being quite as physically fit as I was last year (a couple of months on the couch after surgery will have it's effects!) - all contributed to this experience.
but I really want to add that I feel VERY strongly that reading all these Scuba newsgroups, and learning, learning, learing, from experienced divers, reading accounts of other divers in similar situations, and COMMITTING to
memory 'what to do if this should happen' sort of stuff made the difference for me ....
it made a situation that in all reality, honestly could have turned into a disaster...instead, just be a not-all-that-interesting story (certainly less interesting on the beach than "Where the HELL did that boat go, anyway?")
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