Spearfishing/Freediving Alone?

[PSagion88]

Hello everyone:
I came to find out recently, that all my friends don't like the water, and/or are the biggest wimps that ever touched foot in this planet.

None of them wants to go spearfishing with me, so I have decided to go on my trips by my self.
A little info on where I will be:
For now everything will be in shore within less than 100 yards from the sand. I'll provably be with in the radius of a well know hotel (The Breakers) so in case of an emergency i'm on walking distance of help.

Now, I'm very comfortable with the water, but I need to hear from the experts. Is it a bad idea to go by myself? and if is ok? what should i watch out for?

I would love your feed back,

[Marwan]

to give you a short answer, YES its dangerous to go on your own, among the dangers are:
1 - You could get entangled at the bottom as you attempt to extract a holed up fish
2 - You could get a cramp (even if you are fit, dehydration can cause that) and be unable to swim back
3 - A buddy can look out for you if there are marine hazards in your area, sharks and boats are 2 good examples..
4 - You could blackout for pushing yourself beyond your limits, your life will then depend on someone pulling you to the surface immediately and doing the necessary steps...

having said that, you could do some things based on the conditions you outlined:
1 - Always tell someone on shore (possibly from the hotel if they have a lifeguard), where you will be exactly and when you intend to return..so that they will look out for you
2 - Always have a float and flag that are visible even in surf (log flag pole)
3 - Always take a bottle of water with you on your float, if you could put some fruit thats good too (oranges tend to have a good resitance to water)
4 - Keep the fish stringer on your float and not on your belt
5 - Rig the gun in a way to lbe able to ditch it in case of any danger/entangelemnt..reels or attaching the gun to the float (my preferred option) are both good options, their use will depend on conditions where you hunt...
6 - Have a spare gun on the float if you have another gun..
7 - Dont eat heavy food and DRink lots of water before you dive

thats basically what i could think of at this point

[nostres]

Even the best and very experienced freedivers/spearos die in the water when alone, we hear it too often. You can't trust lifeguard at the pool so big hotel 100 yards away is no help either, there is danger no matter how shallow You are, You can even push Yourself further thinking "it's so shallow here".

What You need is new friends, aqua people, try to find them, here is a good place to start looking

cheers

[hyeparis]

I spearfish alone in sea during my summer vacations, but when doing so I stick to the coastal line, never swimming far away from the coast and sticking to comfortable depths. I once swam into the sea for about 400 meters to a rock and nearly had a heat stroke after swimming in waters that turned out to be too hot for my suit and I struggled to get back to shore. Since then I stay within 100 meters from the shore. But I must says it does get on my nerves - my breath hold is 30 percent less when I spearfish alone in unknown waters.

[The Killer's me]

Indeed you will be putting your ass on the edge by diving alone.
what Marwan mentioned on Top, it is all true...
Dont push the limits, take good rests between dives. Never hypervantilate.
If on the way up, your shaft got stucked inbetween the rocks, leave it and make another dive after taking enough rest.

Happy diving and try to take a freediving course to know more about this sport.

[spaghetti]

Originally Posted by nostres

Even the best and very experienced freedivers/spearos die in the water when alone.
cheers

...but they DO go alone.
What I mean is that we all know that diving alone is dangerous and should be avoided, but nonetheless we all do dive/hunt alone, and it's very often, for two main reasons: 1) no buddies available and /or 2) for the intimate pleasure of an introspective experience.
Knowing that it's dangerous, however, is a very important starting point: follow Marwan's adivices, don't push yourself beyond your limits, improve depth, bottom time and difficulty level only STEP BY STEP, very prudently and modestly.
PS- Even if "don't go alone" is theoretically the best adivce to give, I honestly think it's useless to tell newbies "don't go alone", because we all know they will do that.

[Tomy Suero]

Hello Spaghetti! I have to go alone must of the time in a radius of around 2.5 km. I start at 6;30 am. until 12;M, BUT I LOVE IT! I start looking for lobsters then spearfishing. It is very dangerous to be spearfishing alone but the pleasureof it is biger. Keep your fish on top of the board, the knife always with you, be careful and if you know your abilities nothing will happens.

Tomy..

[Freediver1]

If you are asking for our advice, it tells me that you are not comfortable and worried, and if that is the case, dont do it, wait until you have a diving buddy.One of the cardinal rules in spearfishing is using a buddy system, once you break that rule you are on your own,,,good luck.

[spaghetti]

Originally Posted by Tomy Suero

if you know your abilities nothing will happen.

Well, not exactly. On the contrary, something wrong might always happen. Even if you are prudent and extremely careful with the biggest dangers, which are related to bottom times and depths, there are so many unpredictible events which might kill you, especially if alone with no buddy and no boat: line tangling, sting from some poisonous fish, a boat cruising your area very fast, cramps, a fin blade that gets broken, a sudden change in current and weather, attack of seasickness while you're far from shore, getting cut and bleed hard.....

[Tomy Suero]

As I said, is very dangerous to go alone. I have been waiting for around a month to go fishing, I will invite my friend of course, the sea is going to be very good tomorow if he can't go I will have to go alone, I do not advice it to nobody. But personally I will take that chances.

[Agar4Life]

The long and short of it is that the nature of the activity is inherently dangerous.
In SCUBA we were told "The safest way to dive is to not dive at all." but that, obviously is taking it too far.

The safest way to dive is to make yourself aware of all the potential dangers and take actions that will remove the hazard or reduce the risk.

One of the most effective actions is to dive with a buddy.

So unless you are taking enough action to remove/reduce risks to a satisfactory level then you should dive with a buddy.

[atomichaggis]

Many of us break the cardinal rule sometimes.
None of us will recommend that You or anyone else does the same.
Best advice I can offer if You do break the cardinal rule are...
take a knife or two, Dive WELL within Your limits and never push it, stay close to shore, use a bouy and always let people know where You are and for how long.

I dived minus a bouy the other weekend and was about 2 meters from getting my hair parted by a crab potter... heart rate went through the roof, had to flare my fins hard to stop me going straight into it.
too much shit can go wrong in the drink.

[MARMIR]

...Come on folks let's be serious, this is the usually lie that we say to ourself to make us feel a little bit more confortable when we start going down under....unless your buddy is up in a boat holding a rope tied to you or watching what you're doing I wouldn't rely much in a buddy who is spearing like you......if something goes wrong he will rescue at least 15 minutes later (if you are lucky)
I would rather rely on a simple device: a kind of life vest with a small computer that would shoot me up to the surface once a preset time is expired.....

[atomichaggis]

Watching is exactly what a buddy should be doing and that does mean one dive on and one off.
many people also dive rigged as pairs, two divers on one line through connection on the float so only one can go down at a time and both are always connected unless one drops their lead.

[Erik]

I dive almost exclusively by myself. I head out with friends and we might stay in sight of each other at the surface, but that's it. We have crap vis for the most part anyway and buddy-spearing is just not fun or practical. We take our chances and dive very conservatively. I can do a 6+ minute static, can do a 3 minute hunting dive with full kit in cold water, so usually I limit the dives to under 2 minutes.
But spearfishing deaths are number 1 within the freedivering community, so it's a risk you need to calculate, thinking of the consequences and sorrow that others might feel if you die.