Nervous Passenger - 24/02/2019

When teaching, some dives stick out way more than others. The ones you remember tend to be when something goes wrong. We don't tend to remember the dives when you complete your objective without incident. However, today it went so well, and I learned a lot.

The plan was fot me to do three training dives with three different people:

• A 30m ascent
• A 2 minute swim with mask removal
• Drysuit buoyancy skills

The first two passed without a hitch, but the trainee I was taking in for the third dive, Prawn, had proven to be somewhat spooked and had refused to dive initially. 

I had a chat with her and convinced her it was worth trying again. I offered to physically hold her hand the whole time. I broke the dive down into stages.

1. Breath face down in the water

2. Kneel down in 2-3m of water(or swimming pool depth as I put it)

3. If we want to continue drop down a little deeper to 10m 

4. If she was happy, go for a wee swim

I spoke softly ( I always speak softly - I actually have a lovely voice, with a singing Scottish lilt), I reassured her.

We went in and had an excellent dive. Confidence restored. It was one of those occasions when it was all genuinely rewarding.