Question Freediving alone to shallow depths

[rammstein_123]

Hey everyone, I am a male in my mid twenties from the UK.

As a child, my dad would take me swimming and I was never interested in being at the surface. Luckily my local pool was 5m deep so I would take advantage of that and swim to the bottom, I watched YouTube videos and taught myself the frenzel technique.

Life got in the way and didn't return to it for a decade until recently, I was on holiday and decided to book a free-diving session as it was always something at the back of my mind, so I booked a try dive or AIDA 1 and went down to 9-10 m and loved it.

Ever since I've got back I've been doing it weekly but alone. I bought a dive watch and I've been made very aware of shallow water blackout and I am fully aware of the consequences (my instructor when I was abroad explained everything and I've watched a lot of videos so I know the risks).

I've been going down to 7m and back up again (the deepest on my dive-watch was 8m), and my dives last no longer than 25 seconds and I take at least 5 minutes of proper rest and breathing and no hyperventilating. I'm too scared to go down to 10m alone but I was wondering if I would blackout with such infrequent dives (btw my sessions last 1 hour tops and minimal actual swimming).

Just wanted to know if pushing it to 10m alone is safe or not, or if the risk is worth it.

Thanks

 

[rollerGR]

nobody can tell for sure whether we will have to struggle with hypoxia at any given dive so it's better to keep a preventative stance at all times, proactively via good dive protocol. work on your breath hold, never push your time beyond diaphragm spasms, surface if you feel uncomfortable etc i'm sure you've heard that already but repeating for good measure

as far as depth goes, no 10m is not deep but it's at the cutoff of shallow. the truth is that blackouts happen with depth being the primary reason, virtually 100% of blackouts happen during deep dives, not when the depth is 5-10m. a dive buddy helps in case you black out and he sees you losing motor function while ascending, which, if you are diving shallow and follow proper technique (no hyperventilation, relaxing properly) has extremely low probability. but it always better to think that it does have a probability, because it always does. we might always get stuck down there somewhere, hence why we have to be alert

ask yourself this, if you overstay for whatever reason and you're left with little breath, your diaphragm pounding, do you have enough oxygen left to get to the surface? if the answer is "yes" then you are diving shallow because the surface is simply too close. if the answer is "yes but with samba", then you were deeper than you should be

a danger that increases when diving alone is safety from incoming boats

rest period between dives should be 2x minimum dive time. 3x ideally. you're at 10x so you're fine

PS even with a buddy you should operate as if you are diving alone and there is nobody there to help you if something goes wrong. you have to ensure your own safety

 

[7BDiver]

Breath hold diving to 10m is quite low risk and the primary concerns are the same for anyone simply swimming or doing any other activities alone in the water. Just be carful to always follow the general simple rules of recovering a minimum of twice as long as the dive time. Dive to a comfortable limit, return upon start of contractions (be conservative). Don't chug water with your snorkel and don't dive in dangerous environments alone. There are a lot of safety warriors out there, just trust your instincts and dive within your confidence.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

Breath hold diving to 10m is quite low risk and the primary concerns are the same for anyone simply swimming or doing any other activities alone in the water. Just be carful to always follow the general simple rules of recovering a minimum of twice as long as the dive time. Dive to a comfortable limit, return upon start of contractions (be conservative). Don't chug water with your snorkel and don't dive in dangerous environments alone. There are a lot of safety warriors out there, just trust your instincts and dive within your confidence.

I would add that I have never felt a contraction so I couldn't use that as a way to be conservative. Conservative for me was going up while I was still pretty comfortable.

 

[7BDiver]

Yes Bill, you are an aberration, I still have not been able to find any medical journals that parallel your unique attributes!

 

[Bill McIntyre]

Yes Bill, you are an aberration, I still have not been able to find any medical journals that parallel your unique attributes!

My wife says that too.

 

[J Campbell]

I would add that I have never felt a contraction so I couldn't use that as a way to be conservative. Conservative for me was going up while I was still pretty comfortable.

Me too Bill! I will experience very mild contractions if I'm doing a LONG static breath hold. But for depth and dynamic I don't get them at all. What I do get is that when I've been down for a long time I get a STRONG urge to breath - that is my signal to come up.

 

[J Campbell]

I think the recovery time is key. Even though you may be able catch your breath quickly and your breathing has slowed back to normal and you feel fine - your body is still processing metabolic products. You can't feel that but it is important to let that process finish.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

I think the recovery time is key. Even though you may be able catch your breath quickly and your breathing has slowed back to normal and you feel fine - your body is still processing metabolic products. You can't feel that but it is important to let that process finish.

Definitely. Before I got a watch that measured surface interval, I just waited until I "felt" recovered. After I got a watch I found that was only about 45 seconds- way too short. With the watch my surface interval is at least twice my dive times or even more if I know it will be a challenging dive, maybe to cut out a fish wrapped in the kelp deep.

 

[SDC79]

I'm going to go against the grain of this thread a little bit and quote a former world champion freediver that I had the privilege to train with: "10m is fucking deep!"*.

* She said this because someone had asked her why someone had died at 'just' 10m - and I get that. The problem is the 'alone' bit.