Newbie advice please.

r3nu4l

Hi people, Myself and the gf will be trying out scuba gear in a swimming pool in two weeks time. We will be doing so with members of a Scuba team. Neither of us have dived before. The team will eb supplying all equipment including fins.

Now, I'm a very strong, confident swimmer and am looking forward to this, mrs r3nu4l can only just about swim breast stroke and paddle so she is looking forward to this but with slight trepidation. One of the people on the Scuba team is a colleague of mrs r3nu4l and is aware of this.

I'm just wondering if someone can give me some insight into how this works? I assume that we will fit the equipment and try it all out while sitting at the pool-edge first? I imagine that then we will step into the water and acclimatise and that we will be accompanied by an experienced diver while doing either a width or length of the pool?

Is that about right? Any other advice? Thanks in advance

maco

I have done it few years ago, yes you are right they will do it slowly they will move on to the next level once you are comportable. It's fun and exciting.

Scuba.ie

They'll give you a bit of a theory talk first, just the basics. Then show you the gear and explain how its used. After that they'll help you kit up and bring you to the edge of the pool and into the shallow end.
Then you'll start breathing from a regulator above the water, and then put your face in the water with the reg in place and mask on. Once you are ok with that, they'll get you kneeling down and will take it from there depending on how confident you are.

r3nu4l

Hey guys, tried it last night and had a ball!

I did some basics like equilibrating bouyancy and some lengths of the pool, then we did some regulator clearance where I took the regulator out of my mouth and vented it (while breathing out), then a couple of mask clearances at the bottom of the pool and finally a somersault (that was cool!).

All in all I'd recommend it to anyone. Great fun and something I'd do again. It was only a pool trial dive but I'll be looking at costs of courses after my wedding!

christophicus

Glad u had a good time. How did your girlfriend find it?

r3nu4l

She thought it was great too. She's not a good swimmer so is a little less confident in the water but had no problem using the regulator to breathe and did a few lengths of the pool and equilibrated her bouyancy without any difficulties.

Actually she was probably better at the bouyancy than me. It took me ages to get settled. I was up and down like a yo-yo at one point

Borzoi

r3nu4l wrote:

Actually she was probably better at the bouyancy than me. It took me ages to get settled. I was up and down like a yo-yo at one point

Bouyancy is harder to control in the shallow waters (3mtr) of a swimming pool, as a small change in in depth results in a relatively larger pressure change compared to working at depth 7mtr+, so don't be so hard on yourself

Glad you enjoyed