One thing that leaves me doubtful about the Gorillas as a fin-for-all-conditions however is that, on my last dive trip with the regular Go-Sports I had to do a sprint underwater to fight the currents and I flutter-kicked so hard and fast that both my calf muscles almost cramped! However to my quick relief I found my legs recovering from the brink. And so I actually think the slight floppiness of the original GoSport is a life-saver for such situations.
Or, perhaps if you had stiffer fins, you would not have had to kick hard enough to bring you to the verge of cramps.
I am a person who on rare occasions wakes up grimacing and gasping hard because I cramped a calf muscle with some intense toe-curling in my sleep (magnesium supplements do not seem to help) so I am a little bit apprehensive about how intense finning with the Gorillas is going to be like. And I have had cramps on a few occasions while fighting currents too. It’s always a tense anxiety inducing moment when you are fighting hard not to be swept away and then you have to pause and fold over clutching your bent leg because of some serious cramping pain stabbing away at your muscles!
I take potassium supplements to help prevent calf cramps. I take one tablet every day, to fight calf cramps at night. I take 2 tablets every morning on dive days.
Also, in rebreather diving, we say "don't let your workload dictate your breathing. Let your breathing dictate your workload." I don't think this is a bad idea for open circuit diving, as well.
In other words, if you are in a position where your primary goal suggests you swim against a current, but the current is so strong that you will become impaired if you actually make headway against it, then consider switching to an alternative plan. Even if that means aborting the dive. Working that hard does not just promote cramping. It also promotes CO2 retention, which increases your susceptbility to narcosis, CNS oxygen toxicity, and possibly even the bends. Getting winded, cramping so badly that you can't even really swim at all, and then running out of gas because you got narked and forgot to pay attention to your SPG (which was racing towards zero when you were really exerting yourself) does not sound like a fun time, to me. If you happen to be swimming that hard at your max depth, which could possibly mean at a ppO2 of 1.4, then the increase in susceptibility to CNS OxTox really seems like a bad idea.
Don't let your workload dictate your breathing. Let your breathing dictate your workload. If you have to seriously huff and puff, then slow down or stop and re-think what you're doing.
As such I have loved the originals because I forget I am wearing them the moment I put them on! They are so comfortable largely due to the design of the open foot pockets. To contrast - it took me mere seconds to try-on the Seawings on land and give up on them as an option because of the closed foot pockets. I wonder if the GoSport is the next best thing to split-fins in term of ease of effort and comfort, but I have never tried the splits so I can’t tell.
I hope the new Gorillas are going to be good for me to manage in strong currents. For the general use-case I think they should help manoeuver better with frog kicks and reversing while I am shooting videos. I was a little perturbed by the original GoSports - by what I sensed was the floppy fins lack of drive in the initial few frog kicks from a perfectly stand-still position, or the lack of feel and when reverse-kicking. Hopefully the Gorillas will improve upon it. In any case it feels good to have a collection - just like one has multiple shoe pairs sitting on the shoe rack…
When I tried the Go Sport fins, they felt awesome so me - until I changed from meandering along to putting a little oomph into them to catch up to my buddies. Say, going from Speed 1 of 3 to Speed 2 of 3.
The blades were bending to practically a 90 degree angle. In other words, I wasn't kicking anywhere near my hardest and yet I don't think kicking harder would have really made me go any faster.
I suspect you will like the Gorillas and your fears of cramping from being too stiff will prove to be unfounded. Good luck with them and enjoy!
