Cold water free diving...

[Walter]

That explains the origin of the 30 ft free dive requirement. If it's the Gold Star Master Diver requirement the 30 ft free dive will be immediately after a 400 yd surface snorkel so you should be warmed up. First step is to forget about the dry suit. You can not equalize pressure in a dry suit while free diving. Second step is to get a referral to do the open water portion in the warm waters of Florida. I happen to know a Y instructor who's willing to help. Practice your free dives in the pool. Dive down and swim around the bottom increasing your down time as you gain experience and ability. Move slowly, if you "kick like hell" you will decrease your ability to stay down as long. Jan and Ralph have excellent suggestions.

The important thing to remember is 30 ft is not very deep. A 30 ft free dive is not difficult if you work up to it by getting lots of practice in the pool first. I have confidence in you. Some of my open water students (admittedly the water is somewhat warmer than 44° F) bring up a handful of sand from 30 ft. You already know how to free dive, so there's no point in going over technique. Practice what you know. Apply what you know. Make sure you have a plain snorkel and use the displacement method of clearing. Knock 'em dead!

The offer of a warm water referral stands.

 

[jbd]

Walter,

Could you provide some info on the Gold Star Master Diver course or program? Is it a scuba rating or is freediving? Does the Y teach freediving?

 

[rcohn]

As for how much weight, it depends on where you want to be neutral. If you're neutral at the surface, it'll be easier to get down to depth, but harder to stop at 30' and make the swim to the surface. If you're neutral at depth, then the swim down will be harder, but it'll be easier to not overshoot the mark by too much, and the swim up will be nice and easy.

Standard freediving practice is to weight yourself to be neutral or slightly slightly negative at depth. The deeper you go the less weight you wear. Some (most?) of the freedivers doing deep competative dives and training wear only a few pounds. They may need to kick down 30 to 40 ft before becoming negtative and getting a free ride the rest of the way,

If it was me doing it, I'd go for neutral or even slightly negative at the surface. This makes for a nice easy descent, so when I get to depth, I'd still feel like I had a lot of 02 in my lungs.

DIVING HEAVY CAN GET YOU KILLED! It has happened to freedivers. Any mistakes or shallow water blackout and you will sink to the bottom. Kate has no clue what her limits are and you would recommend a dangerous technique like this? Remember your SWB risk is greatest just below the surface at the end of the dive. That is why standard safety practice is to be positive at 15 ft or shallower so that you float UP if SWB occurs.

If diving heavy you need to hold onto a float at the surface so that you can relax and breathe up before the dive. If you stay too long and surface seeing stars or having a momentary blackout, will the float be right there to help you? Will you be able to grab it and hold on?

Weight yourself for the depth of the dive and do the extra work on the way down when you're fresh. There is nothing down there worth the extra risk of diving heavy.

This of course dosen't apply to a variable ballast dive where you hold an extra weight on the descent and release it when you reach the bottom. This technique is sometimes used on deeper diver ~100 ft, but a diver must do a lot of work hauling the weight up after each dive.

And just for the record I use 22 lb when freediving with my 7 mm suit and I'm 6' 1" and 175 lb.

Ralph

 

[divedude]

I agree with using the wet suit, and neutral weight.

44 degree water cold? I wish our water was that warm. Last 3 months the water here was a balmy 36 degrees

 

[scubakat]

Wow, thank you all for your ideas!
Yes, there will be a float available at the surface and I have asked that our instructor have a safety diver there on SCUBA. We practiced in the pool this week and I am confident that I can do it. I will be renting a wetsuit again this weekend and have access to a hot tub after the class.

So here's another kindof related thing... When I was in the pool practicing my breath-holding I had a hard time doing it with just my mask, snorkel & fins. But then when I put the SCUBA unit on my back and practiced out of air drills I could take a last breath off of my regulator, take it out of my mouth and swim 50-feet on a breath hold with NO EFFORT at all. That just showed me how much of a mental game this will be.

So Walter, on Sunday I'll let you know if I need to take you up on that referal.


-K

 

[scubakat]

So all I can say about saturday was that it's OVER now. Here's what we did for day #2 of OW...

* practice surface dives starting w/ 10' - 15' - 20' (I managed to get to about 20' in practice with about 26 pounds of weight)
* 400 yard surface swim (in current with weight belt on) followed immediately by a free dive to 30fsw (got a cramp at about 10' & came back up)
* 200 yard surface swim followed by a dive to 90fsw to do regulater r&r + mask r&r then simulated deco stops
* 200 yard swim (in current) back to the beach

(I had to stop here...)
Also required...

* Time + count kicks on a 150 yard swim.
* navigate an equilateral triangle of 150yards twice (once to navigate & once to "spot" your buddy & record things on a slate.

All of that is in a drysuit and 42degree water.

Somewhere along the line my suit flooded, but I didn't know it except for being sortof cold and completely exhausted. (all hail to the power of thinsulate!)

Day #1 was hard too, but I completed all of the skills & felt good about my performance.

That warm water sounds mighty tempting Walter!

How do these requirements compare to PADI DM OW skills?

-kate

 

[Ron Brandt]

There is actually a freediving competition to freedive under ice !

Ron

 

[pescador775]

As a Y instructor, I sometimes felt it was unfair to require a freedive or underwater swim immediately after a long surface swim. The student needs time to catch a breath.

The advice you have received is mostly good. You need to weight yourself for neutral buoyancy at 15 feet. This is standard practice for freedivers working at 40 feet or so. Some of the deeper divers wear a compact CO2 life vest, usually a military UDT type.

Equalizing is key. If you can do this quickly as is normal for most free divers, and you have practiced your kip up , then you only need to know this: drive hard for the bottom. It will only take a few seconds to cover this distance. Unlike most freedivers you need not be concerned about splashing the surface or using your hands, just go for it.

Feel free to hyperventilate before the dive. The final breath that you take should be such that you feel "overinflated". This uncomfortable feeling will disappear at 10 feet or so. Before you know it, you will be at 30' and returning to the surface.

Sometimes the first attempt is thwarted by anxiety. You may not even be aware of it. It is more common in cloudy water. Just relax, measure your breathing, take a deep one and go.