[Ted Budion]

We are going nowhere with this, apparently, being each other on different sides of the battle front... The fact of matter is that this so-called liberty to opt is BS; it's a canny political play. I feel sorry for those newcomers to CMAS politics, like freedivers in this forum.

For the record: I, as spearfisher, have opted out and, yes, burned my ships behind with much pleasure. We've gone through the Gandhi stages mentioned earlier in this thread: we're ignored at first, then ridiculized (when not plain offended), then fought against, but we won.

I garantee we're doing in my country a much better job than they ever dreamed of doing it. Insofar that freedivers also look up to us.