Hi all:
Update from NewtoScubaHB2
First, thanks to all of you for your comments and suggestions. I really appreciate them and am considering each of them.
Thought I would mention this. It is amazing how much of scuba is really a mental thing and overcoming mental weaknesses . I realized as many of you had already said that I was never going to really get comfortable until I got myself back in the water with someone who knows what they are doing. So I was extermely fortunate, after procastinating for a few months of doing nothing, to find a very patient instructor, Russ, who is willing to go diving with me.
Thank you Russ for making it possible for me to continue diving and begin to actually enjoy it. I am a person where a few dives in a class just did not make it comfortable for me to go out diving with others who I am not sure are or are not "instructor level" or if they even want to deal with a slower than normal "comfort learner" (is there such a thing!). Russ has made it possible for me to dive and learn at my own pace and not that of PADI or that of another class. Hopefully someday I will eventually take another class, but for now just having a patient "certified instructor" person is exactly what I need. I think it is truely wonderful that someone who can train highly advanced students or scuba with highly advanced divers in general, is taking his time to spend with me; someone who tests his patientence and probably bores the "blank" out of him.
I guess besides saying thank you to Russ, my point is people like this are what make the sport of scuba diving possible to people like me who did have and still have mental phobias even though they overcome them briefly in a class to get certified. Cerification is great, but being completely able to enjoy diving is even a greater expericence. It is fantasic to find an instructor level person who is willing to work with people outside of classes and after their OW certification.
Doug