Part 2 - WOW!! Hawaii PFI 4 Day Course w Photos

[wes]

Part 2 of our adventures at the Performance Freediving International (PFI) 4 day intermediate course in Kona, Hawaii.

After skipping breakfast and setting two personal bests for static (see part 1) my wife Nancy and I are pretty hungry. We eat breakfast snacks we have packed, load into the car, and head out for our first ocean diving in Hawaii. We arrive at a beautiful dive spot (so nice I don't want to tell you its name) and its all black lava rocks and nice sand beach with authentic Polynesian huts in the background. The ultra clear turquoise water is filled with colorful fish we can see from the rocks.

The whole PFI gang is there bolting together a cross that 16 feet (5m) long on each side. It’s a framework that holds 4 dive floats in position from which hang 4 lines with weighted bottom plates. As we get our wetsuits on the PFI instructors are swimming the cross and floats into position. We follow them out over the shallow coral and beautiful fish swimming farther and farther out until the rocks and sand below give way to the blue abyss. Our instructors are setting everything up and talking amongst them selves about bottom weights, rigging and anchor lines. Every once in a while one of them swims down and out of view for about 3 minutes then casually reappears from below. We ask what he is doing and are told, “Oh, he went down to check the anchor line.” We reply, “how deep is the bottom?”. They say “its about 40 meters”, I think to myself in American, that’s 130 feet.

So the course is all coming together in my head in a visceral gut check kind of way. There is a reason for all the lectures on safety and drills practicing what to do if someone blacks out. We divide up into groups of 4 people to each float plus one instructor. That’s 20 people total and reassuring if you think about sharks. Why, because you never read about a shark killing 20 people at once. I’m not supposed to think about sharks, I am supposed to breath thru my snorkel, stare down into the blue abyss and relax. I do the special breathing and actually do relax.

It’s my turn and I pull myself hand over hand down the line to 5 m (16 feet), wait a bit and float back up. This and the next dive to 10 m (33 feet) should trigger our dive responses. Next I kick down to 10m (33 feet), then to 15m (49 feet) . We learn to count our kicks so we know how deep we are. That is it for day one of the ocean dives and while this is not the deepest I have been its very impressive how easily these depths seem to me and how by breaking up freediving into many practicable steps, all the students but those that cannot equalize go to 15m or 20m on the first day. My wife who typically is limited at some depth by not equalizing is a bummed that she only went to 10m (30 feet). I remind her that she set a personal best static time of 4:20 min this morning and she feels better.

Day 3 and 4 follow the same routine with our depth increasing in 3 m (10 foot) increments. This seems slow though makes sense as we are told of people having various serious problems from lung squeeze at depth from pushing too deep too fast and not being able to dive for months or even years. These safety facts and practices are some of the most important lessons we learn along with new techniques that let us dive deeper and longer. For the final dive on day 4 we go to 30 m (98 feet) and again almost everyone makes this depth except for my wife and another who have problems equalizing. It’s not a PB for me though feels very easy. Martin comments in his understated Chezk accent that I have “a lot of depth left”. I desire to go deeper. My wife borrows Mandy’s monofin for the swim in and instantly becomes a mermaid. She now covets a monofin and wants to check the US record in static and dynamic when we get home.


We take the next day off and practice with our daughter Zan and the new family dive float. I finished making the dive float before we left for Hawaii so we haven’t tried it much.

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Zan on Dive Float Looking Down in pool.JPG
This photo shows Zan looking down thru the viewing hole at me on the bottom releasing a plastic octopus for her to grab.



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Zan on Dive Practicing in pool.JPG
Here Zan has grabbed the octopus as it surfaced thru the viewing hole so I clap for this achievement. Zan is almost 2 years (23 months) old.


We show up to train an extra day after the course is officially over. Nancy practices with Zan on the dive float on the beach and in the shallows while I go out with the PFI team for more target dives on the dive line. I use a lanyard now for added safety as I am quite negative at these depths so would continue sinking down if something went wrong. The lanyard would stop me at the bottom plate though adds another layer of complexity as I must now stay close to the dive line as the lanyard is only 1 meter or so long. They set the bottom plate for my 43 meter attempt and even drop a tag for me to retrieve, just like in competitions. I breathe up OK and leave my snorkel in and kick down. I don’t pack even though sometimes I do as we haven’t covered that in the course. I do a mouth fill at about 30 meters and then continue to equalize with the frenzel technique. I didn’t get a complete mouth full and run out of air to equalize at 40 meters, just 3 meters above the bottom plate!! I think well I could push down and get it then remember Martin’s stern warnings about this. Also Kirk’s mantra that technique yields results, not the other way around. So I grab the rope to turn around and realize I can gulp up a bit more air when pointed right side up. This bit of air plus some air sucked from my sphera mask allows me to equalize once more and turn down again to descend and grab the tag!! I kick up and all are smiles and for now results have yielded to technique. It feels good to know that I have air to spare and that I have lots of work to do on my technique.

Our last day diving with the PFI team we ask to bring Zan out with us. My wife gamely agrees and we carefully load Zan onto the float. As we swim out Zan bends her head down peering thru the view hole and cries out, “I see coral”, “I see fishies.” The chop and swell rock the dive float. Zan is getting more fussy as the waves splash her and the the bottom disappears. We almost turn around then decid to keep going and turn back if Zan gets any more upset. We sing songs and Zan mellows as we arrive at the dive spot. The PFI video guy films Zan’s game of having Dad dive down and release her green octopus bath toy. Zan watches it come all the way up and catches it at the surface. This plus the PFI mermaids and mermen amaze Zan. Here are two shots of Zan and my wife Nancy off shore at the PFI divesite.


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Zan on Dive Float Hawaii Side View 10-06.JPG


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Zan on Dive Float Hawaii Front View 10-06.JPG


We head in as Zan is getting tired and then she falls asleep!! Amazed, Mom and Dad look at each other and say, “Baby sleeping, lets dive.” We were pretty close to shore so had a great time diving on the coral reef seeing all the sites. Well that’s our Hawaii PFI adventure and we can hardly wait to do it again!! Cheers - Wes Nancy and Zan

[maytag]

Hey Wes,
Thanks for sharing your PFI experience! That was a great read and great photos (HI looks cold, though?)! It looks like your daughter is a future freediver already! Neat account of your 43m dive - congratulations! It's the first time I read about someone who started ascending and then turned back around.

Cheers to your family, mytg

[BatRay]

Great story & great pics, wes. Inspires me to look into the PFI classes again.

[wes]

Thanks Batray and Mayta,

It's been about 4 weeks since "coming down" off the high we got from Hawaii. We have already bought tickets to go to Grand Cayman April 2007 and just got the the two monofins we ordered on our return. Experiencing freediving with the PFI gang definitely charges it up alot. We will train with alot more intent this winter, and have alot more fun too I think. My wife has gotten alot more into this than I thought (or dreamed) she would. She loves the connection with the breath and yoga (which she has taught) and relaxation and freediving. If you can swing it I would definitely suggest a PFI course, even before buying more freediving gear. My reasoning is that its better to be totally stoked and excited about wanting to train and get out and do it (and you will if you go to a PFI course), then having alot of gear you don't use that much. I still have not bought a special wetsuit for freediving or a freedive computer and have spent much more than that on PFI training and holiday expenses. I am now though very motivated to make some real money this winter and save it up for more gear and train alot in the pool so this is a very happy place for me. Cheers Wes.

[BatRay]

Thanks again for sharing, Wes. It's cool that your wife dives, too; it's like you have a built-in dive partner. I'd take the PFI if I had the money for it We'll see how things go in 2007.