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Originally Posted by Stephan Whelan
The paramount rule is "Don't Dive Alone - Always With A Buddy".
All clubs, courses, instructors, buddies, manuals and guides I know of tell you this and it cannot be stressed enough.
If you are with a buddy and you have a good system of communication the chances of anything bad happening to you are no higher than other sports (we've been risked assessed for our corporate insurance for the courses we run so can talk with some authority on this).
The reason freedive spearos tend to have more deaths is the fact that they tend to dive alone more and are usually more focussed on the catch than the "freedive". Hence there is sometimes a bigger desire to stay down "just that little bit longer to get the catch".
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I think this is another example of the difference between pure freediving and freedive spearfishing and our barriers to communication. Sure, all the freediving courses stress that you should always dive with a buddy, but its just not a reality in spearfishing, and is unlikely to change. Competive freedivers are doing nothing else besides trying to extend their depth or time limits, so it would be insane not to have a buddy with nothing else to do but watch them. After all, the buddy isn't after his own fish.
But going back to my statement that its very dangerous- someone replied that its not dangerous at all if done right. That is true, but driving on Southern California freeways is not dangerous if everyone does it right. However, not everyone does it right, and a lot of people get killed. Before driving the freeways, we should consider the reality, not the ideal, and the same is true for freedive spearfishing.
As it happens, there is a similar thread on Spearboard.com, and I posted the passage quoted below a couple of days ago. Again, the focus is on spearfishing, not competive freediving. I'm still not certain what the originator of this thread had in mind. If you don't speafish, then this does not apply to you. But if you do, then it might at least be food for thouht.
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I don't think there is any question that one-up/one-down would make us safer as freedive spearfishermen, but the question is how much safer and at what cost in productivity and enjoyment?
I guess you can take the point of view that life is priceless and any increment of additional safety is worth any cost, but I don't think that is realistic. After all, never driving a car would make us safer, but not many are willing to accept the cost.
Many times I have watched a buddy go down through the kelp in fairly decent vis, and then almost panicked when I never saw him come up in what seemed like a long time. Then I looked around and there he was on the surface a few yards away. If he had become tangled on the bottom, what are the chances I would have found him in time to help? If he had blacked out at 10 feet or even on the surface, as long as he was positively buoyant I might have seen him in the kelp, but I might not.
I guess I can see some practical advantage for guys on the East Coast, making deep dives pretty much straight up and down on reefs or wrecks, although even there we may over rate the ability to the guy on the surface to get down to the guy on the bottom, especially when he is all excited. As I recall, the dive buddy of Terry Maas's son could see him from the surface and the depth was alleged be within his capability, but he couldn't save him. But at least if the diver passes out relatively close to the surface and the water is reasonable clear, the surface spotter can save him. I'm told that at least one of our SoCal divers has been saved three times that way. I would think that after the first one or two incidents, he might question putting himself in the hands of a buddy that way, but I guess that is another subject.
But anyway, I doubt many California freedive spearfishermen are going to start using a strict one-up/one-down system. I'm a big pussy, and in fact I've been reminded of that by two different people on the board in the last 24 hours, but even I am not willing to do it. I just rely on being very conservative with my breath holds and arriving at the surface with no feeling of urgency. I'm not dumb enough to think this is foolproof, but its my tradeoff between trying to live for ever and enjoying what life I have.
I enjoy the relative solitude of diving alone as long as I know I have someone around to help me if a fish is hung up deep, etc.
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