Big flopping fins are a safety hazard. My guests will not get flopped in the face by free diving fins or worse like corals slapped by the wearer. I've seen it too many times. It takes a lot of experience to know how to feel where your fins are in relation to your body position. Just not cool. And, it's my perogative as the owner.
Sorry for sounding so adversarial....my issue is not with you, but with mass propagandizing within the dive industry..
Let's start with the scuba diver --- in my world view, he/she should be very slick in the water ( no entangling hazard issues, no large volume, puffer fish like BC configurations, etc). With warm water diving, the diver does not need massive weight, so if only a small swing of weight for neutral buoyancy exists, then the BC does not need more than 30 pounds of lift. This also means that there is a mimimum of weight on the diver, which also allows him/her to swim flat/horizontal--which is the way we are supposed to swim efficiently, as opposed to having an extra 20 pounds of lead, plus air in the bladder to compensate at 60 feet deep, forcing a feet down, head up swimming posture, which means this diver is pushing a huge bow wave and can never glide the way they should. Additionally, massive BC's with 60 to 80 pounds of lift create huge drag while swiimming, and should an inflator malfunction, and the high lift BC auto inflates from depth, the huge volume BC's can create a very dangerous lung over expansion injury potential, not shared by the 30 pound lift wings ( meaning, the ascent speed on the 30 pound wing will not be all that fast, versus rocketing up with the monster BC).
Backplate /wing designs are plentiful now, meaning I don't have to push Halcyon--I can also push Dive Rite and many others. With these backplate and wing systems, the diver has a low profile in the water, and with reglulator hoses rigged properly, the diver can be so slick that they can easily do the big slow kick and long glide formerly only seen in freedivers. This has tremendous implications for a scuba diver----with the long bladed, high quality freedive fins, a diver in the slick configuration just discussed, can perform a 50 or 60 minute recreational dive, with a heart beat and breathing rate far lower than their "evil twin on traditional puffer fish BC" would be experiencing.
So the first benefit is less air used/more air reserve.
Second, will be that with a much lower Heart Rate/workload, there will be lower nitrogen absorbtion.
Third. Many of the coolest dives ( most spectacular) have significant currents, sometimes complete with eddies. A slick configured diver with freedive fins, has the ability to correct for the current and eddie changes more like a fish, than the puffed out traditional scuba diver--who has so much drag, that eddies constantly upset him, push him around, and the current makes effort on the dive way too high. The gliding capability, coupled with the enormous increase in propulsion power and speed bursting, allows the slicker diver to make simple and easy corrections, and to rarely even be consious of having to correct for eddies or current--it is just so easy, it just happens.
Fourth...A whale or other huge photo op or thrill marine life swims by, and you find it "appropriate" to attempt to keep up with it for a while...with freedive fins, the slick scuba diver will be able to go at least 2 times the speed of the puffer fish diver--maybe three times the speed. So the optimizing of potential experiences is much better.
Fifth...a diver in your group is in trouble, but 30 feet away---with freedive fins, you can cross that gap far faster than the diver with traditioanl fins, at a time when seconds are crucial.
6th... Getting back on the boat, the freedive fin wearing diver can generate the power sometimes nice to have, in the last 20 feet between them and the boat. As for myself, there is also the getting out of the water bonus, where I can ignore the stinking ladder, and use the fin thrust and speed, along with whatever wave size and boat motion exists, to "belly up" on the swim platform-meaning I am up on the boat in 1 second, instead of 30 seconds to a minute, and I never have to hang on the ladder helplessly, one fin on, and one off, hoping I don't get knocked off.
Beyond all these points, I will also add that with freedive fins, I have enjoyed precise control when my wife Sandra is doing macro photography, and I am forced to remain in a non drifiting hover mode for many minutes at a time....I hear on newsgroup type posts frequently, that some instructors think that freedive fins will cause damage to the coral reef--I find this massively insulting to all of us....What this means, is that the instructor making comments like this, has not taught the student to achieve proper weighting and matching of BC, so they are swimming head up and feet down--this is a huge failure of many instructors interested in volume of students passed, over quality of divers they turn out. It also means the student was never taught decent buoyancy control, or they would easily be able to hold themselves a safe distance above the reef--regardless of fin choice...blaming this on long fins is the ultimate in stupidity.
And lastly, there are people who can not be taught to be decent divers, period. This is pure blasphemy to PADI mindsets, but I know plenty of "good" PADI instructors who agree with it. But the industry needs every diver it can bait in, hook, and then reel in to instruction and equipment purchases---they will not accept that anything exists that can not be sold dive gear.
In snow skiing, big resorts will have a large ski school, where new skiiers will be asked to perform a few basic moving skills on skiis ... some will do christis in to the hill, some will do snow plow, some will fall just trying to walk on skiis....the group of instructors will have predecided who is stuck with the worst group of the day--the skiers referred to as "never-evers".... these are the people that the instructors agree have issues which will prevent them from ever being any good at skiing--some have a complete lack of coordination, some are so physically unfit that the skills could not be practically achieved, some are so fearful that they can not listen, and do not ever REALLY want to be there--and they will not even want to learn--they may be doing this because a family member of friend"pushed" them into this....These issues of never'evers tie in well to diving, but the "Dive Industry" likes to pretend these do not exist. Short story---if someone can not be taught to swim flat, and to use freedive fins, either they are a never-ever, or there instructor is
Regards,
Dan Volker
P.S.
I would be happy to show you how to optimize the use freedive fins for scuba divers the next time Sandra and I head for Indonesia ( we plan on a month, with several destinations)..I would be willing to make a bet ( money) that I could optimize any fit student that has an interest in being efficeint in the water, to do much better with freedive fins--and for you to decide he/she began doing better with the freediving slick BC config, than with the tradtional scuba config....if we make this bet, I will bring more gear with me on the trip
