Free Diving with Scooters - The test series

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I've seen shallow water blackout samba and it is serious stuff, always right at 15 ft, well you know the physio. More important to spot shallow than deep, of course. I don't think everyone gets that.

yea, kelp could give you a bad day.

Ken, think how fast you could go in a bikini, if you were oily.

You need some long blades eventually.
 
I've seen shallow water blackout samba and it is serious stuff, always right at 15 ft, well you know the physio. More important to spot shallow than deep, of course. I don't think everyone gets that.

yea, kelp could give you a bad day.

Ken, think how fast you could go in a bikini, if you were oily.

You need some long blades eventually.


Two things:

1) I would sell FEWER rebreathers, not more, dearest. :10:


2) I don't need long blades because I HAVE THREE SHORT ONES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


:) :) :)


---
Ken
 
I thought the pictures were excellent! She needs bigger fins not smaller ones. Real freediving fins will be more efficient and she will be able to dive further and be safer. The photo's look funny to me because she has her snorkel in her mouth. Freedivers remove the snorkel at the start of the dive, but I suspect scuba divers looking at the pics see nothing peculiar.

Wearing a backplate and crotch strap for weighting seems like a bad idea. What happens if the scooter craps out, her suit is compressed, her lungs are crushed? She will be much heavier at depth than with scuba. I would always want an easily ditchable weight belt.


If I was using a scooter, I would choose to underweight myself for a few reasons: She will be more likely to be neutral at the crusing depth and she can use the scooter to start the dive and easily fight a little bouynacy and will then have an easier ascent with less, rather than more lead.

I hope her knife was on her waist strap
 
I'm a scuba diver messing about happily, snorkling with a scooter and my best friend.
I'm not a serious free-diver and have no aspirations to be one.

Depths: Oh my... I don't have the ears for repetitive deep free-diving, nor the inclination. It's thrilling to me to flash down to 25 or 30 fsw max, level out and just FLY through the water next to the towering kelp....for a loooong time! This is plenty deep for me, and I can do this for long sessions without ticking off my ears too much.

Teamwork with two scootering free-divers? Yes, I like keeping the team together, but my absolute favorite routine was alternating current. One person dived while the other watched and tracked from the surface. Partly it was security to think that my buddy above me had lungs full of air and could help if needed. But my favorite part was watching Ken free-dive while I tracked him. The movement of a strong, athletic diver roaring along the kelp in rippling sunshine was mesmerizing. It looked so effortless and smooth. Very fun. I was always ready to dive down if needed, but all was good, all the time.

Photog on scuba with free-diving buddy? I watched constantly, turning away only when I passed the camera, or when I was opening up the distance so I could drop and then scooter by horizontally. I couldn't donate air, but we stayed shallow, and I could have arrived quickly in case Ken got entangled in the current driven kelp. We're GUE trained. I know his gear like it's my own. Ken's a strong, fit, smart diver with lightening reactions and fast, correct decisions. We always have a plan. This is not casual stuff. 250+ dives a year. We take this seriously so we can have outrageous amounts of fun and always come home.

Knife? Oh yeah... always in the holster in my waist strap. And I can unclip the scooter with one flick of either hand. Or cut the tow cord. We stayed out of the kelp, but had walked through the scenarios if entanglement were to happen.

Buoyancy? Yes, I was postive at the surface, and the scooter motored me down fast. On the ascent, it was a delightful acceleration as all the airspaces expanded and I rocketed upwards. If I'd had to ditch the scoot, I could have easily kicked upwards a short way and then would have sailed up from 15fsw.

Long fins? Nah... tried 'em. No benefit during scootering as they don't steer well for tight fast maneuvers. Short fins work better for steering, but the Rocket fins I wore in this series were too heavy and had too much drag.
I don't go deep. I don't need massive fin power to drive me upwards in case I lose the scoot. What works best for me with this kind of breath-hold scootering is light-weight plastic snorkling fins. Less drag when roaring around being pulled by the X-team of horsepower, but enough surface area to use to steer. And enough fin to kick me to the nearby surface if I'm suddenly scooterless.




*jonesing*craving*needing*dreaming*

It's the best.

~~~~
Claudette
 
Beautiful pix
 
That's pretty sweet with the scooter. Looks like fun and I'd love to try it. I do think that having that scooter tethered to your non ditchable backplate with thin cord is a bad idea.

I'm an avid freediver and when I dive with my speargun, I attach it to a floatline. If I shoot a big fish at 60ft, I just drop my gun and grab my float line to retrieve it. I think attaching a float line to your scooter, letting it sink if there are any problems and pulling it up is a much better idea.

Then you can also go into the kelp without problems. If it's tangled, just drop it and pull it up with the float line later.

Taking your snorkel out when you go under is also heavily advised like the other poster mentioned. That way when you need air, you don't need to clear the snorkel on the surface before breathing. Just pop your head above to take a breath. Snorkels are only made to let you swim face down in the water.
 
Wearing a backplate and crotch strap for weighting seems like a bad idea.

well, not artsy anyway. But you know how the DIRps are about their backplates. (they might sleep in them for all we know, dumpster)

I don't go deep.
well, why not?

Snorkels are only made to let you swim face down in the water.
yea, but remember all the people that made fun of Walker in Into the Blue and thought they had caught a big faux paux?
 
Hey I like the snorkle! I didn’t even know she owned one! I thought when you put one near a BP they spontaneously combust.

In all fairness to safety, in my limited experience and observations, Claudette and Ken have always been the epitome of safety and conscientiousness.

It’s not exactly free diving and it’s not exactly snorkling... it’s some kind of hybrid thing... Free Scootering?
 
It is fun, isn't it??!!
---
Ken
It is an absolute blast. It is my latest craze :D. Here are some pics of our latest scooter adventure...freediving the wreck of the Donal G. McAllister. We went there to spearfish but since there were no respectable fish on the wreck we got out the scooters for some fun!
 

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