New board for freedivers...

[Chris]

Just thought I'd add a special place for our freediving friends.
;D

[freedivernd]

Chris, Thanks for the spot.. ;D
Fred

[Freedive WI]

YE HAA!!

Now the two of us can email back and forth. Maybe we can drum up some more interest in the sport. Most of the lakes are so shallow that it seems silly to put scuba gear on to check them out. If your into fishwatching you don't go deep and you can get much closer to them without bubbles.

Jon

[Al]

O.K. now you have to tell us newbies what exactly is "freediving?" Does snorkeling with mask and fins count if you hold your breath and go underwater? How does holding your breath while sitting at the computer compare to swimming underwater?

Thanks for the info. and encouragement.

[JoelW]

Now, now, you can get close to them without bubbles and not free dive. The board was a frenzy last week with discussions about rebreathers. Although a CCR seems a bit overkill for watching crappie in 20'.

JoelW

[freedivernd]

If you're under the water with mask,fins, sans tanks technically your freediving .. 'course the original free diving meant scuba because no longer were you attached to the surface by bell and rope or hose and pump. On a personal note: I have a hard time using the phrase freediving for anything I do less than -20 and tend to refer to that as "I was snorkeling", after that I seem to use the term freediving.. but you are freediving even if you're under the surface just 1 foot sans the tanks. Hey, doesn't "free diving" sound better than "snorkeling"..
Fred

[Freedive WI]

Terry Mass, bluewater hunting guru, defines freedivng as "an inch and a breath". That means that anyone who bobs underwater while holding their breath is a freediver. Most freedivers usually think of it as a breathold for at least 45 seconds to a depth of 30' or more.
You can do much more that you think, but must rember to never try and do it alone. More than one person has drowned in 3' of water trying to see how long they could hold their breath without anyone watching.
Yes, you can hold your breath at your computer. We call them "Dry Statics". They are a safe way to pracitce if you don't have a buddy. Just don't try it while driving in your car. ;D

Some of the world's top tech divers are also great freedives:
Tom Mount
Brett Gilliam
Kirk Krack
Billy Deans
are just a few of them. Good freediving skills make all of your scuba skills that much sharper, plus there is the added benefit of knowing that if you run out of air at 100' you can make it back up to the surface.

As far as getting close to big animals goes, when i was freediving with whale sharks in utlia rebreathers and scuba was not allowed.

Oh, and freediving is a heck of a lot cheaper than any scuba diving that I have ever done!

Jon

[tcjtn0]

But there are those of us who still suffer from "bubble-mania".
(Guess that kills the rebreathers too...)
Oh well.....
Jean :'(

[Freedive WI]

There are reasons to practice freedivng even for the die hard bubble-blowers out there.

Freedivers work on getting their weight down to the bare minimum. Less weight means less stress and lower air consumption. Orioer weighting is something that only the DIr crowd seems to be in tune with. Everyone else just seems to srap on double 100# wings to offset omproper weighting.

Freedivers don't waste energy, they store it and move in a puproseful manner- sound like your openwater class??? Thrashing around too much underwater makes you tired and sucks your tanks down much quicker.

Freedivers practice proper diaphragmatic breathing. This allows you to stay underwater longer on a single tank WITHOUT skipbreathing.

I can easily outlast most scuba divers when tank diving. Most scuba divers show up with too much junk on, overweighted, and using poor techniquie- trim, weighting, kicks, ect.

I have dove with divers wearing double 120's and matched then almost to the psi while diving a single 80- this was a limited deco dive (5-7 minutes tops). Not wasting energy and using a proper breathing method allowed me to do this. IT also allows me to breath at about the same rate as my 5'2" 105 pound wife who has been diving for years.

This emphasis on breathing is a big focus of Tom Mount, president of IANTD. He truly believes that proper breathing can get you out of a jam on a tech dive when things go wrong. I happen to agree with him whole heartedly.

Freediving skills are the lost art of the modern scuba class. Most of us who have been diving, or teaching, for over 20 years remember when the first few weeks of scuba classes were devoted to freediving skills. These skills made everyone a much better dvier- which we needed to be becasue most of the gear was crap.

In today's quicky classes I hardly ever see them mentioned past a basic snorkel clear.

Jon