Hi there! I'm just a swimming/free-diving enthusiast who found his way here in looking for my first monofin. Thanks for all of the opinions/reviews, except the ones that end with "I've never actually used it".
I'm lucky to live within an hour of Lake Michigan, and growing up my dad imparted a love of swiming and free-diving. Pools are nice for going from 0-18' right away right off the bat, and are always clear, local lakes are... water even if they aren't clear, but nothing beats a huge lake on a clear, calm day for swimming and diving. Let me qualify "free-diving" by saying I've never been deeper than about 25', and usually 15-18', without fins, and often without a mask. Cold water, warmer water, calm, red flag, ... My dad had us do speed-diving drills and practice holding our breath in case any boats didn't see us. We started from the beach, which means we swam about 200 yards before we got to the deeper water (depending on the state of the bottom, and which beach we launched from), alternating strokes, and floating on our backs to keep from getting worn out. By the time we got back to the beach we sometimes spent as much as 2 hours out there just swimming about and diving. One summer we went every morning before dad started his 2nd shift job.
I'm 31 now, and I still love it, but I'm looking to go a little deeper, explore a little more, equip a dive bouy (to smooth things over with the coast guard), and start doing some swimming/diving with a monofin. My experience with fins has been limited to occasional use of $20 fins, which I usually used in a dolphin stroke (my favorite stroke), so finally I decided that this is/was the summer for my first quality fin/monofin.
I was all set to buy a classic monofin, when I ran across the lunocet again after having seen it several years ago (back then I deciding it was an interesting gadget which introduced mechanical dead space, and probably required too much effort), and ultimately called Ted about 2 weeks ago to place an order for the 2015 Pro. If I get it sometime this summer/year (*nudge* *nudge*), I'll be throwing up some pics/vids and a review for what that's worth.
I'm lucky to live within an hour of Lake Michigan, and growing up my dad imparted a love of swiming and free-diving. Pools are nice for going from 0-18' right away right off the bat, and are always clear, local lakes are... water even if they aren't clear, but nothing beats a huge lake on a clear, calm day for swimming and diving. Let me qualify "free-diving" by saying I've never been deeper than about 25', and usually 15-18', without fins, and often without a mask. Cold water, warmer water, calm, red flag, ... My dad had us do speed-diving drills and practice holding our breath in case any boats didn't see us. We started from the beach, which means we swam about 200 yards before we got to the deeper water (depending on the state of the bottom, and which beach we launched from), alternating strokes, and floating on our backs to keep from getting worn out. By the time we got back to the beach we sometimes spent as much as 2 hours out there just swimming about and diving. One summer we went every morning before dad started his 2nd shift job.
I'm 31 now, and I still love it, but I'm looking to go a little deeper, explore a little more, equip a dive bouy (to smooth things over with the coast guard), and start doing some swimming/diving with a monofin. My experience with fins has been limited to occasional use of $20 fins, which I usually used in a dolphin stroke (my favorite stroke), so finally I decided that this is/was the summer for my first quality fin/monofin.
I was all set to buy a classic monofin, when I ran across the lunocet again after having seen it several years ago (back then I deciding it was an interesting gadget which introduced mechanical dead space, and probably required too much effort), and ultimately called Ted about 2 weeks ago to place an order for the 2015 Pro. If I get it sometime this summer/year (*nudge* *nudge*), I'll be throwing up some pics/vids and a review for what that's worth.