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---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 17 APR 1996 19:36:11 GMT From: Dan Volker <dlv@ga*.ne*> Newgroups: rec.scuba Subject: Snorkelling/Freediving...Why YOU should try it; Why it can help your scuba; Why it can make you safer; Why it can make you a happier person... My idea here, is that snorkelling/freediving can make your scuba diving safer and more enjoyable, and add a brand new element. In the last few months, I have been drifting strongly toward spending more time freediving (which unfortunatley means less scuba), and in the process I have been getting other scuba divers to try this as well. I know I will not be able to talk huge numbers of divers into trying something that would seem to be "far more work" than scuba, with less "time" on the bottom...but in many cases this is NOT the case. And I think I can interest a lot of people with some of the possible "rewards". Once you master just a few of the simple skills (breathing deeper, using you whole lungs---most people don't) and learning to slow your heart rate (which is really not so hard) you will find you can swim slowly down to much greater depths than you would have imagined possible, and once there you can "hang out" for a while before your leisurely return to the surface. In Palm Beach Florida, most scuba divers spend a lot of their time on a huge reef tract known as the Breakers Reef system. It covers more miles than you can cover in several days of diving, and it has three distinct areas within it (the large inshore facing ledge top 43 bottom 65; the reef crown which ranges mostly between 43 and 46 feet deep; and the back side refferred to as the fingers, which run from 46 at crown to as deep as 90 in the sand at the end of some fingers). This reef crown is an ideal place to freedive once you have practiced the basics for a few weeks. This experieince, which I'll describe in a bit later, is part of the REASON to freedive. What I have been doing lately is getting some of the scuba divers who have been doing the 40-60 foot reef to try snorkelling on the parallel 12 to 17 foot Breakers Reef just 100 yards off shore. What they have been finding is that in one afternoon, they can learn to swim down 18 feet, and hang out at the mouth of a big ledge, and have big clouds of fish swim up to them which previously would have been avoiding the bubble producing scuba diver....and they can easily swim back up to the surface and do this repeatledly for over an hour. They are getting close to fish that some guys spend $15,000 on a rebreather for, in order to accomplish the same thing. And somewhere during the first hour of high comfort at 18 foot depths, a NEW "FEELING" occurrs...a different kind of connection to the ocean, a far more direct one. Since part of "doing" a freedive involves deep relaxation and a near meditative state, the completed act of hanging at a ledge, watching the fish life and cleaner shrimp, etc, puts you into a whole new "Zen" kind of an experience. And each person who feels this, wants MORE! Step two occurrs after they have spent sevral dive days relaxing at 12 to 18 foot ledges, and tried to spend at least 15 minutes a day forcing all the air out of their lungs, and then pushing even more out, and then breathing new air back in, from the bottom of their lungs--through their diaphram, to the point the lungs feel full, and then cramming more air into the top----this will expand the usable lung area they have, allowing deeper and longer freedives with less effort. Step two has them on the 42 foot crown over the "Flower Gardens" portion of the main Breakers Reef. Now comfortable in the water and excited about extending the meditative state into veiwing the life on the far more prolific ledges at 42 feet, the new freediver has aquired the long freediving fins for less exertion and slower heart rate while swimming up or down, and is wearing just enough weight to be a couple of pounds negative---allowing them to almost "sleep" their way down, as they swim slowly and fall to the bottom. A few warm up drops to 20 and 30 feet get them into the "Zen" mode, and they deep breath in preparation for the drop to the bottom. Amazingly, they find they have plenty of time to not only reach the bottom, but to grab on to a piece of limestone ledge, and watch what is going on in and around them. "Swimming with the big freediving fins is DIFFERENT...its like suddenly you are not a human any more, you feel more built for the ocean, more like a funny looking dolphin. Swimming is effortless, slow or fast." When the new freediver swims up, they find this too is serene and not difficult. And on surfacing, air never tasted better! For myself and the half dozen scuba divers I've talked into trying this in the last few months, there have been some MAJOR CHANGES to our scuba diving as a result of this FREEDIVING. We relax more when we first get in the water, and our heart rates run so slow that one tank can last two dives instead of one, if we want it to. Each of us has tossed away our old scuba fins, and use freediving fins now for scuba---they are better---less effort at any speed, faster when we want it---they make us part of the eco-system, one with an underwater world which we have now evolved into. We don't drag stuff with us in the water if we don't have to---this limits our connection to moving like we belong there. And on dives of 60 feet or less, most of us like to try our freediving at least as much as we like to use scuba there. As to deeper, in the months ahead, the 80 foot reefs in Juno have big pelagics we will be able to approach, and the feeling of "evolving" ourselves further from "homo sapiens" to "homo aquaticus" is an attractive compulsion which will drive us to more lung expansion excercises and better control of our heart rates. On days we can't dive, we do the deep in, deep out breathing described earlier, and after a few deep breaths, a final maximully full one, and then a slow leisurely walk for as far in a straight line as we can go on that one breath---the slower we can keep our heart rate, the further we will go. Each time we try to go a little further. All this will equate to deeper dives for longer, easier. So what can YOU get out of this??? How about a whole NEW component of experiences available underwater---an entirely NEW FRONTIER for you....How about drastically more air time when you are scuba diving, because of the way you now control your body. How about changing the way you move in the water, making yourself into the most efficient version of you that is possible, far more efficient than you already are...How about making yourself so at home in the water that a 60 foot dive feels as shallow to you as a 8 foot dive does to you right now...These are all things that freediving will do for you, to change you, unless you ALREADY ARE A GOOD FREEEDIVER! Don't get me wrong, I still love scuba diving...thats why I created the South Florida Dive Journal for the Internet. But freediving adds a whole new dimension, and really can change you forever! -- Dan Volker South Florida Dive Journal http://www.florida.net/scuba/dive "The Internet magazine for U/W photography and mpeg video"
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