Just ticked over 500 dives and honestly the number feels wrong

Hit 500 logged dives last week on a pipeline inspection off the coast of Galveston and everyone kept congratulating me like it was some big deal. But I still get the jitters on the first drop of a new job and I've had close calls from stupid stuff like a tangled lift bag that had nothing to do with experience. Anyone else feel like their dive count doesn't match where their skills actually sit?

2 comments

2 Comments

verac403d ago

The number feeling wrong is real. I hit 200 dives last year and thought I'd feel like some kind of expert but I still froze up when my mask flooded during a night dive in a strong current. It was just a stupid string on my octopus that got caught on a valve and I couldn't see anything for a solid minute. Reminds me of when my buddy Dan had over 600 dives and he still forgot to zip his drysuit all the way on a cold water job and ended up soaked and shivering before we even hit 50 feet. That count just doesn't mean what people think it means.

lisa_bennett3d ago

Stupid string on my octopus" - ugh @verac40 that's so real. I had almost the same thing happen on a reef dive last summer, completely froze when my mask fogged up and I couldn't breathe for a second. It's wild how the number doesn't protect you from those brain freeze moments. I had like 150 dives under my belt and still panicked when a current pushed me into a coral head and I couldn't find my buoyancy. That dive count just turns into a number on a log book, not some magic shield against stupid mistakes.