Bermuda rookie freediver.... Manny Puig fan....!!

[neil burnie]

Hi Guys, what a great forum.....

I am sitting at the computer hooked up to a pulse oximeter that I normally hook up to the dogs and cats I operate on at my vet hospital.....I am a 52 year old , pretty good shape, windsurfer, snowboarder and soon to be freediver/spearfisher. I just got back from meeting Manny Puig in Florida and hope to go Gator swimming in the 'Glades some time next year....the carrot for Manny will be that I own a shark cage and get regular swims with Tiger sharks here in the summer! Having watched him lifting 400# Groupers and 10 foot Gators makes me realise that I need to work on my breathold skills.
My resting heart rate is 66 bpm, goes down to 52 when I'm super relaxed and off the caffeine. On a static just now my Sp 0 2 started at 98%, my heart rate went up to 100 and at 2 mins I still had a 96% Sp O 2 . It then fell fairly steadily over the next 2 minutes and I quit at 4 minutes with an Sp O 2
of 75%.......I took a series of deep breaths(!) during which my Sp O 2 FELL FURTHER to 68% prior to climbing rapidly back to 99%.

I AM AMAZED.......If one of my patients dropped below 80% I'd be panicking
......but I guess they are on O 2 and anaesthetic so any decline means some serious perfusion problem if they're still breathing......
At what level of Sp 0 2 am I likely to lose consciousness and from these results can any of you predict how long I can look to aim for when Spearfishing? We are limited to the use of polespears, but we have Black Groupers here that run to 125# plus and can be found in 20- 50 feet of water. I hope to take a big one on Manny's new spear with a slip tip and
detachable floating rope setup but I'm sure that some major wrestling is going to be required!!

Looking forward to further discussions on this fascinating site!
Neil "bones'' Burnie

[BatRay]

Welcome! Much of that information would be well-received in the Freediving forum; they're always talking about such things Good luck with your new pole spear, and enjoy your stay on DB!

[naiad]

Welcome to DB! I don't know what my SpO2 is when I hold my breath, but I'll soon find out.

Lucia

[trux]

Welcome Neil. Where exactly do you attach the oximeter? If you have it on a fingertip, then the reading may be quite far below the real O2 values due to vasoconstriction in extremities as Walrus reported several times - for example in this thread. Earlobe pulse oximetry should give you more realistic results.

[neil burnie]

Thanks guys and gals.....
I did have the pulse ox on my earlobe during that test, and I was in my O.R. at the time sitting down, very relaxed. I can do 4 minutes in the car but if I do it I make sure that I'm parked for the last minute , just in case...!!
I went shopping today and picked up a set of Apnea blades, 50 feet of floating rope and 30 ft of stainless cable for the sliptips so I'm getting closer to being rigged and ready....
How important is a lowvolume mask? Can't I just equalise it with lung air on the way down and then breathe that back in on the way up to say 15 feet prior to an exhale at say 10 feet...?
It will probably all become clear on my next trip out....

Neil

[drunkinbda]

lol just found this. welcome neil!!! hope to get some good dives with ya sometime

ages old post, i know hehe

[Adrian]

Welcome Neil, and be careful with those groupers, when they hole up and you start pushing and pulling to get them out your O2 will go down like a falling elevator. Here in Europe this fish has been the involuntary cause for many a spearo's death. As far as relying on percentages for knowing how long you can stay down, unfortunately that doesn't work. I may be wrong but I think there are too many other variables at play - hydration, tiredness, etc that will throw off that precision to make it basically useless. On my PFI course during static training people were blacking out and while hearing the words of their buddy saying "Breathe, Breathe", they actually thought it was being said to someone else and that they were doing fine themselves. So go figure, even subjective observations can be misleading.

Common sense, keeping a good safety margin, diving with a buddy who's actually watching you when you go down, etc, making sure you have decent surface intervals and recovery breaths - relaxed breathups before going down etc., will all help you stay safe. And relax - don't try to do everything in one dive. If the fish is holed up with a spear sticking in it it's not likely to be going anywhere. You can recover it on subsequent dives.

So enjoy, lucky you in Bermuda!

[sanso]

Neil welcome to DB,
With Your first post You already supplied great info for those of us looking into physiology. Which should be pretty much all freedivers and spearos.
Looking forward to reading Your further findings!