Fun Freedive for non certified

[HoneyBadger]

Hi there,

I'd like to share this matter and appreciate your feedback about fun freedive and certifications:

I freedive as a recreational activity since I'm 10 years old (30 years ago ) when I did an apnea course. Since July this year I started to improve the techniques as I'm much closer to the shore. I've relied on books, youtube videos and forums to improve relaxation, finning, equalization, CO2 tolerance, etc.

I dont have a SSI, AIDA or similar certification but I wanted to do a "fun freedive" in a more controlled environment i.e. with a line, buddies, etc for safety reasons.

I currently hold these stats:
Dry apnea: 4:30
Depth: 20m (dont want to push it as my buddy does not go that deep)
Freedive time around 10m: 1:30m

Thats the feedback I've got from a freediver instructor:
1. I cant do a fun freedive as I'm not certified
2. Freedives are not logged

My questions are:
1. Is "fun freedive" only allowed to certified freedivers across all agencies?
2. Dont freedivers log when they break their "personal best"? By log I mean "scuba log style": a stamp from the shop/ agency and a signature from the instructor/ guide.

Please note:
1. I'm not questioning the value of a formal certification, but I think non certified divers could join a supervised fun freedive as this would be the the safest way to practice. Prior tests could assess which level you are e.g. breath holding time, finning, arm/ head position. A log would be handy as well.
2. PADI promotes scuba for non certified divers with the "Discover Scuba Dive" which has a guide/ instructor supervising that diver. Same thing could be done for freedivers with supervised fun freedives.

Appreciate your feedback/ thoughts,

 

[cdavis]

there are no "legal requirements" for any type of certification for freediving. You can do any kind of freediving you like, fun freediving or whatever. Whether it is safe or not is a different question.

Never heard of a "logbook" for freedivers. but I would not be surprised if some idiot came up with one. It could be good marketing. Most divers know their PBs, but I could not accurately give you mine, except cw half lung.

Safety is the issue. For example, your stats are well up in the range where you could get yourself in BO trouble. Safety is hard to teach from the internet. A good course works much much better (personal experience). I guess it would be possible to do some kind of intro "fun freediving" format. PADI would gravitate to that kind of thing. I can only describe my Canadian diving buddy's(he is also a scuba instructor) reaction (horror, he had to leave) on seeing Florida open water scuba training(PADI, I think) going on in a near overhead environment.

 

[HoneyBadger]

there are no "legal requirements" for any type of certification for freediving. You can do any kind of freediving you like, fun freediving or whatever. Whether it is safe or not is a different question.

Never heard of a "logbook" for freedivers. but I would not be surprised if some idiot came up with one. It could be good marketing. Most divers know their PBs, but I could not accurately give you mine, except cw half lung.

Safety is the issue. For example, your stats are well up in the range where you could get yourself in BO trouble. Safety is hard to teach from the internet. A good course works much much better (personal experience). I guess it would be possible to do some kind of intro "fun freediving" format. PADI would gravitate to that kind of thing. I can only describe my Canadian diving buddy's(he is also a scuba instructor) reaction (horror, he had to leave) on seeing Florida open water scuba training(PADI, I think) going on in a near overhead environment.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Hi cdavis,

The main reason to go to a freedive shop looking for a 'fundive' is fundamentally safety: if I want to push a bit more, I want to do it with buddies that can go as deep or deeper.

But instead I get the answer (from a SSI instructor/shop) that I can't join since I am not certified. That's a way to push their certification course but since I am travelling I just want to go for a practice session/ 'fun freedive'.

If the shop/agency does not have a clue about the person, a few tests would do the job and a log book from previous freedives would come handy in the absence of a formal certification.

If the idea is to attract people to practice in a safer environment, I think SSI* could make it easier to gather freedivers (certified or not). In the meantime, I will continue my dives and be close or at the surface by the time the contractions kick in.

*Not sure if that applies only to SSI, to this particular freedive shop or even to the instructor

 

[foxfish]

Hi Honey Badger, isn't that a very fierce creature?

 

[Erik]

IMO the problem here is legality for the shop or instructor. They open themselves up to lawsuit if a non-certified person accompanies them.
Why they don't have something like your suggesting; IE a waiver for fun diving or a free intro course is beyond me. It would be a good way to get someone interested in courses and gear sales.
Hopefully you can hook up with a few other divers that want to push a bit safely and have fun. That's what I always tried to do.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

I ran into the same crap in scuba diving. When I started age 15 in 1954, there were no classes and no certification. I don't recommend it, but I survived. Much later, dive shops started offering certification classes and requiring certification to fill a tank.

In the interim, I has grown up, entered the US Marine Corps, and gone though a month long US Navy diving school where I was number one in my class. Unlike NAUI or PADI classes, students actually failed and were kicked out. There was just no comparison between this Navy course and the civilian certification courses.

So I offered proof of the Navy course, but that wasn't good enough. That's when I became convinced that certification was just about making money for dive shops. I've had to save the lives of a couple of graduates of those courses. Those people should never have been allowed in the ocean, but I guess their checks didn't bounce.

I hope we never come to that in free diving.

 

[cdavis]

Honeybadger,

You ran into a marketing ploy. Like Bill, I fear the advent of more of this kind of stuff. I can certainly understand there could be some legal issues, but plenty of ways around those.

 

[HoneyBadger]

@foxfish: HoneyBadger is the most fearless indeed....but it doesnt have gills . The video below has more details:


@Erik @cdavis: I think the legal issue could easily be addressed with an "Agreement, Release of Liability & Assumptions of Risks". That's the type of document you sign before skydiving and even playing Paintball.

@Bill McIntyre: PADI is also known as "Put Another Dollar In" . Nonsense not to accept a Navy certification. In the other hand, they did a good attracting more people to scuba. Agree that the quality may be questionable though.

One thing that crossed my mind while reading your comments which can help many other "buddy-less" freedivers: if the buddy system is so important, but sometimes hard to find due to incompatible interest (say one is 100% spearo and the other 100% freediver), qualifications (one goes to 40m but his buddy only to 20m), or you are travelling and dont know any freediver at your destination, maybe deeperblue.com could facilitate the connection of these divers by adding a "Buddy List" opt in feature to both desktop site and mainly to the mobile app (which currently has only 500 downloads for Android as it doesnt make use of a mobile specific functionality such as geolocation).

With more than 45K people in their Facebook page, I think thats enough "critical mass" to start building a global buddy list. Would that be in the interest of deeperblue.com's to build it? What do you think?

Cheers,

 

[Erik]

@Erik @cdavis: I think the legal issue could easily be addressed with an "Agreement, Release of Liability & Assumptions of Risks". That's the type of document you sign before skydiving and even playing Paintball.

You mean like a 'waiver'?
I wish I'd have thought of that.

 

[go-hard]

Interesting reading.

There is no legal requirement for certification to go free diving here in New Zealand and there have been limited opportunities to get certified. I joined the Auckland Freediving Club a bit over 2 years ago and went through the clubs own safety induction programme (we have one for pool and one for depth).

Everyone at our training sessions has to either have been through our safety induction OR be a member of another club with a similar induction process (or, in the case of an overseas visitor, be able to satisfy the senior members runn a particular session that they know what they are doing).

On the certification front last summer I went through AIDA 2, 3 and 4 star courses and we also had 4 members reach AIDA instructor status. We are now running AIDA 2 and 3 star courses for our members but this is not a requirement to train with us.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Interesting reading.

There is no legal requirement for certification to go free diving here in New Zealand and there have been limited opportunities to get certified. I joined the Auckland Freediving Club a bit over 2 years ago and went through the clubs own safety induction programme (we have one for pool and one for depth).

Everyone at our training sessions has to either have been through our safety induction OR be a member of another club with a similar induction process (or, in the case of an overseas visitor, be able to satisfy the senior members runn a particular session that they know what they are doing).

On the certification front last summer I went through AIDA 2, 3 and 4 star courses and we also had 4 members reach AIDA instructor status. We are now running AIDA 2 and 3 star courses for our members but this is not a requirement to train with us.

@go-hard: Wish all the places were like that as I think it's the best approach so far. You make it easy to train freediving with safety requirements in mind, let more people be involved with the sport and leave the doors open if they decide to pursue a certification.

 

[go-hard]

@go-hard: Wish all the places were like that as I think it's the best approach so far. You make it easy to train freediving with safety requirements in mind, let more people be involved with the sport and leave the doors open if they decide to pursue a certification.

Thanks for the positive comment. I can reasonably safely say that it will remain this way here with our club for the next couple of years - I happen to know the newly elected club president very well ...

 

[Andrew the fish]

I ran into the same crap in scuba diving. When I started age 15 in 1954, there were no classes and no certification. I don't recommend it, but I survived. Much later, dive shops started offering certification classes and requiring certification to fill a tank.

In the interim, I has grown up, entered the US Marine Corps, and gone though a month long US Navy diving school where I was number one in my class. Unlike NAUI or PADI classes, students actually failed and were kicked out. There was just no comparison between this Navy course and the civilian certification courses.

So I offered proof of the Navy course, but that wasn't good enough. That's when I became convinced that certification was just about making money for dive shops. I've had to save the lives of a couple of graduates of those courses. Those people should never have been allowed in the ocean, but I guess their checks didn't bounce.

I hope we never come to that in free diving.

Bill, this almost mirrors my experience. Different Navy though (Russian eh), did the course, I was good, ended up running dive station on our ship. Just like you, I had to do PADI course afterward. Was slightly pissed at first. But it wasn't really a complete waste of time since we were having fun all along. I did it on Roatan (Honduras) and it was only marginally more expensive than renting gear, and quite honestly I wanted to show a good discipline to my son who was taking the course with me. And, on top of that, I learned a few new things as well, gear is way better these days and different safety curves, use of computer etc, it was all good. Money grabbers or not, when it comes to scuba, certification is absolutely necessary.

Now, when people talk about certification for freedivers I am really appalled. People do breath hold diving all the time. It is a very natural and fairly safe thing. Our bodies are designed to tell us when we need to breathe. Trouble begins where we start calling it "freediving", when we take a course and learn how to ignore the urge to breathe and how to get ourselves in trouble by going way deeper than we should, and getting certification for it.

"Pilot John Doe is now certified, has been given a parachute and therefore he can fly terrain-following at insane speeds (in formation with other airplanes, for safety's sake). Date, stamp and signature."

 

[manalive!]

Hi guys,

I'm not sure I fully agree with this.

I'm sure you're a competent, safe diver, but the very real potential for any one who on paper appears competent, but in reality could be a danger to themselves or others would stop me personally from getting in the water with anyone who wasn't certified

As someone that occasional assists in dives, I see the need for a "level of competency and safety certificate", a training course if you will. If a club or shop was to organise a dive with someone who has self assessed, the club would either need to trust them (which I wouldn't be prepared to do from a safety/legality point of view), or they'd need to be assessed. When would this assessment take place, on the day of the dive or a point before? If on the day, what happens when it turns out that the person was not competent enough to undertake what was planned, does the lead diver then have to take the time to educate this person in the water? If a point before, then this may take many hours and cost (we don't have too many dive sites near to us in the UK), who's going to cover these costs?

I see too great a potential for problems, diver certification minimises this risk

 

[go-hard]

In New Zealand we have limited opportunity to get certified. Many of the best (and safest) divers have no certification at all.

Our clubs induction programme (if you combine the pool induction and lake/depth induction) is probably close to AIDA 1 star plus other stuff and effectively takes the place of certification. Also, we have introduced a progression from 8m to 16m etc. dive lines where club members must practice and demonstrate appropriate safety diver practices and abilities before they move to a deeper line. We are all taking turns at safety diver for each other so we need to have confidence in those we are diving with.

We will also be running safety refreshers as we begin our depth season at the end of this month. (Heading into Spring here).

IMO this is better than certification from a practical perspective.


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[Bill McIntyre]

I think I may be coming from a different perspective than most of you. If you pure freedivers who compete at seeing how close you can come to death without quite getting there want to have rules and certification, then have at it.

But I'm just a spear fisherman who does it free diving. The shallower the dive and the shorter the dive that enables me to shoot a fish, the more I like it. So often on Facebook and even on this board I see reports where spear fishermen show me photos of their dive watch so I can see how deep they dove and how long they stayed down while shooting a fish. I don't really care to see that.

In Southern California, we have some large boats for hire that take freedive spear fisherman out to shoot fish. So far, none of them require some sort of certification for passengers. I live in fear of that changing.

 

[go-hard]

I agree with you Bill. Going out with a speargun shouldn't be about depth but more about hunting ability. There are a few species here in NZ that usually require deep dives but the majority are accessible in the top 15m or so.

Competitive free diving is different - although I would say that my spearfishing has improved since I joined a freediving club (many members are also spearos).

I hope that certification is not introduced for spearo trips and free dive trips.

Interestingly I did get asked about certification when I went out to the Great Barrier Reef last Easter. I asked what certification the snorkellers had - the only difference between me and them was the length of my fins. They didn't ask again. (Although I did happen to have certification ). This was on a commercial tourist operation that split punters into "SCUBA divers" and "snorkellers". After the stop at the first dive site they got used to me not staying solely in the shallows over the top of the reef.




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[NoFair]

I ran into the same crap in scuba diving. When I started age 15 in 1954, there were no classes and no certification. I don't recommend it, but I survived. Much later, dive shops started offering certification classes and requiring certification to fill a tank.

In the interim, I has grown up, entered the US Marine Corps, and gone though a month long US Navy diving school where I was number one in my class. Unlike NAUI or PADI classes, students actually failed and were kicked out. There was just no comparison between this Navy course and the civilian certification courses.

So I offered proof of the Navy course, but that wasn't good enough. That's when I became convinced that certification was just about making money for dive shops. I've had to save the lives of a couple of graduates of those courses. Those people should never have been allowed in the ocean, but I guess their checks didn't bounce.

I hope we never come to that in free diving.

Norwegian military divers are issued a CMAS certificate (at least they were back in my days) so we can fill tanks etc. as civilians

 

[manalive!]

To be fair this money spinning isn't exclusive to freediving or scuba diving. A few years ago I went to rent a car, I assured the rental company that I'd been driving for years and was very safe, however they insisted that I had a driving licence as proof of this. Several hundred British pounds later I acquired a driving licence and was warmly welcomed back by my local car hire company, I'm sure they, the government and local driving schools are in conspiracy to get their hands on my money!

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