Weights, Nuetral Bouyancy, and Freediving

[Freedive WI]

The surface water is nice and warm so you get to warm-up in between dives. Lake Michigan had been cold top to bottom so I have been wearing a 6mm suit for diving there. Since the surface water is also cold I need to have a thicker suit on so that I don't freeze out in 45 minutes. 8)

I am not sure how many dives I made on Sunday. I know that it was more than 100. We go back and forth between deep and shallow. We would use the deep lines when the other scuba divers cleared off of them for a while. Then, we would move to other places when the classes came back out and needed them again.

There is a world record freediver from Canada who has been talking about doing some pretty extreme dives in cold water with little, or no, wetsuit on. He has a theory that you can snap the mammalian dive reflex into play faster by using controlled hypothermia. Last year he did a dive in 39 degree water using nothing but a face mask! :o No fins, no wetsuit, and he made it down to 100' and back without a problem. He is now experimenting with doing deeper dives, over 200', with just the top half of wetsuit on. His theory is that the cold water on the legs will slow the body down more and shunt more blood up the heart and brain. HE has some pretty extreme ideas, but I have had the privelage of diving with him and he has the records to back it up.

As for me, I am not willing to try anything so harsh just yet. I stay toasty warm in a 3mm suit when the surface temps are warm. Wazee was 73 degrees down to about 24' and I was way TOO warm in my 3mm suit in that temp. It actually felt quite refreshing to get down into some colder water. After a while we started pulling our hoods and gloves off so that we wouldn't overheat in the shallows. At the end of the day, after spending a good 4-5 hours in the water, we rinsed out our suits and did some freediving in our swimingsuits to cool off a little bit.

BTW: a freediving wetsuit cannot be compared to a scuba wetsuit. Freediving suits are MUCH warmer and easier to move around in. They also require less weight since they are unlined on the inside.

Jon