I've got an idea- breathold with Scuba

[LiquidRush]

I do quite a bit of diving and thought this up, not sure if anyone practices it regularly.

1. Suit up in scuba gear, do breathe-up (without reg in mouth)
2. Dump air, sink, equalise.
3. Reach planned depth.
4. Inflate jacket.
5. Come up with ease.

(would this be dangerous for any reason, if u kept within your personal limits? I figure it might be a bit safer, as u have air/equipment handy in case of emergency.)

 

[Freediver81]

Hi!

I would say that what you are doing is reverse variable weights!

 

[Huan]

you will have all the additional drag of a bottle,stab jkt Regs blah blah usual scuba paraphernalia and the only advantage is that you don't have to kick on the way up?
I would say you would be lucky to get down 10m with a scuba rig on.
If you start breathing from the bottle then thats it for your day freediving.
why don't you just get a big rock tied to a rope, hold your breath and jump over the side.
When you get to your planned depth let go and kick your way back to the surface?
IMO a waste of time.Learn to freedive properly.

 

[LiquidRush]

oh I can do it properly, i'm just lazy,

 

[Huan]

Thats not just lazy , thats making things dangerous.

 

[LiquidRush]

I thought it would be a bit safer

 

[JonDaAzn]

your "personal limits" while wearing scuba gear will be a lot different from your limits when you are normally freediving due to weight, reduced hydrodynamic efficency, etc. This could lead to you overestimating your abilities and lead to a BO or samba

 

[Poida]

Don't listen to them Liquid Rush
It's a good idea with one major advantage. Whoever finds your body will get a free set of scuba gear.
Kindest regards
Poida

 

[DrLindholm]

Hi
breath-hold diving with a SCUBA bottle and using the BCD for an assisted ascent could be dangerous: The fast ascent could put you at risk for decompression sickness, there are known cases with serious (neurological) DCS from only one single breath-hold dive where the diver used some kind of assistance to increase ascent speed. Otherwise it is a good idea to bring a backup system during a deep dive, e.g. Enzo Maiorca and his daughters regularly used an integrated safty system in their wetsuits, it consisted of some kind of bag and a bottle of compressed air. \

Dr Lindholm

 

[JasonWelbourne]

I myself, am known amoungst those who know me closest for coming up with similar such ideas, which are without fail always greeted with people shouting "what's the matter with you, sounds pointless, dangerous, what a waste of time."
As a consequnce I usually do my experiments alone, although the world can not rob me of my enthusiasm to talk about neat ideas, I usually shut up about them in the end regardless of how I really feel about the subject.
In any case, there are two possibilities:

1) You have the time, energy, luck, and capacity to experiment with or without community support to the extent of proving something to be valuable or not to yourself without getting your self killed.
OR
2) You don't.

So how brave are you?

 

[Shadowkiller]

1) You have the time, energy, luck, and capacity to experiment with or without community support to the extent of proving something to be valuable or not to yourself without getting your self killed.
OR
2) You don't.

So how brave are you?

Im curious, do you measure the "bravery" required by the degree of stupidity of the action, or by the potential consequences? Bonus points for possible lifelong debilitating injuries?

Sometimes the bravest act is to say NO.

The problem with wearing breathing gear on a freedive is the temptation to use it, then to ignore the possible dangers created ie DCS,, air embolism etc.

 

[Erik]

I think one of the other problems with 'mixing' freediving and scuba is that if, like me, you've trained yourself to hold your breath, you are more likely to continue doing that, especially in a dangerous/panic situation. Guaranteed embolism.
I still do some hard hat surface supply work, and I still hold my breath as the first response in the water.
A safe way to apply the idea for the lift from the BCD would be to not mount regs on the first stage: just SPG and BCD inflator. But as stated, the drag would be ridiculous.
Dive safe: hold your breath! I'm scared of scubadiving
Cheers,
Erik Y.

 

[JasonWelbourne]

By using the word brave, I am not endorsing said activities. Nor am I comparing my exploits to his potential one. Lots of people have their own ideas about what is proper and what isn't. In the eyes of my SCUBA brother, liquid goggles / pipe-mask are pointless and a complete waste of time. Add the potential dangers of rupturing one's ear drums through poor soft pallate control, and you have one of those circumstances that inspire people to say "What is wrong with you, are you retarted?" But people dive with liquid goggles / pipe-masks. Amoung the right community, it is an acceptable pattern. Amoung the wrong community, it is reckless and without benefit. If LiquidRush wants to go try something out, then by all means he should do it. If he does, as you say, give into temptation, an consequentally hurt himself, then yeah, I guess he was pretty stupid. He should have been brave enough to say no because he had no business doing it in the first place. If he goes and does it, and enjoys it, and finds it rewarding, then maybe he is on to something and just talking to the wrong people about it. Maybe he could continue to develop the idea and start a new trend and he might find a community of likeminded people that didn't act so indignant about a reasonable question.

BTW, my original post was given in the tone of sarcastic and intended to be an announcement of LiquidRush's potential stupidity, but since you went and took it completely the opposite way, you made me think about things.

 

[efattah]

Jason has a good point.

When I first thought of the idea of fluid goggles in September/October 1998, I posted the idea on the 'freedivelist' (e-mail list). The immediate response was that it was the 'dumbest idea ever invented' and that it could 'never work' because fixing vision underwater was 'way more complicated than that, and probably impossible.'

When the goggles did eventually work, and were useful, the same people told me that the idea was 'obvious' and they assured me that I was not the inventor, that someone long before me had thought of such an 'obvious idea.'

I recall a famous person say something like this:
"When a new idea is presented,
- it is ridiculed
[then, after it shows some merit]
- it is furiously rejected
[then, once shown to be true]
- it is treated as obvious
"

 

[island_sands]

I do quite a bit of diving and thought this up, not sure if anyone practices it regularly.

1. Suit up in scuba gear, do breathe-up (without reg in mouth)
2. Dump air, sink, equalise.
3. Reach planned depth.
4. Inflate jacket.
5. Come up with ease.

rofl rofl
bit bored after your new year's festivities? :ko

 

[JonDaAzn]

there is a difference between this and fluid googles, if the goggles don't work, you cant see, but if this doesn't work, you wont live

 

[JasonWelbourne]

Improper use of liquid goggles / pipe mask at depth can result in ear perforation. The resulting vertigo and the fact that it is an ascent problem to begin with could indeed kill a person. It is also easy to avoid. Keep the soft pallate open so the air has somewhere to go, or reverse frenzel continuously. That seperates humanity into two groups: Those who have the skills necessary to utilize the benefits, and those for whom it is dangerous. If a newbie posts that they have a great idea: Fluid filled goggles, is anyone going to tell them it is stupid because it is dangerous and the benefits are barely existant if at all so why bother? No. The reason is that fluid goggles / pipe masks / nose clips are an acceptable pattern in this community. Mixing SCUBA and free diving isn't. But that doesn't make it dangerous for the properly trained individual, and it doesn't mean that there isn't or wont ever be a community in which such practices are acceptable.

 

[ash]

The basic concept of using something to assist your ascent isn't all that bad IMHO although using a set of SCUBA gear to provide that assistance is probably a bad idea.

As others have pointed out, repeatedly swimming down the drag of a BCD and regs is going to be no fun at all and having the regs available to breathe at depth is far more likely to cause problems than to be of any real help in an emergency.

If I wanted to have some fun with assisted ascents on a freedive, then I would use a small SCUBA cylinder such as a 2.6 liter pony bottle in conjunction with a delayed surface marker buoy (DSMB) with a no-lock quick disconnect inflator fitting.

The drag of a small bottle and first stage with one LP inflator hose and a button SPG is minimal and you can tow it around easily with one hand. There's no temptation to breathe off a second stage and turn the freedive into a scuba dive and you can just let go of the DSMB and bottle at any time on the ascent, which you can't do with a BCD.

I've hitched a ride a few times on a DSMB sent up by one of my SCUBA diving friends and it was quite a relaxing and fun way to get to the surface. They only put a small amount of air in their DSMBs at depth, so the rate of ascent isn't that fast until the final few meters. I just let go before the ascent rate gets too fast and float to the surface.

If I was going to use a pony bottle and DSMB, I wouldn't use it for more than a few dives a day, I wouldn't try to extend my bottom times and I definitely wouldn't try to imitate a Polaris missile on the ascent. It would just be another way to have a bit of fun while freediving.

BTW - I am not suggesting that anyone actually try this. As Dr. Lindholm has noted in this thread, it be dangerous, so if you're silly enough to try it, you do so totally at your own risk! :duh

Ash

 

[laminar]

The pattern of telling someone what they are attempt is silly or dangerous is a familiar one to me after reading lots of posts.

Instead of telling Liquidrush how dumb he is and that he could die using a BCD to return to the surface, explain how and why it is a bad idea. Otherwise, what is the value of this online exchange?

Problems as I see it with any equipment used to return to the surface is that it could fail. Equipment fails. Accidents happen. I put more trust in my leg muscles, arm muscles, general ability to learn my general state of well-being on my way to diving, than I would ever put into man-made equipment. I know that on a recreational dive I could still make it to the surface with my bare hands and feet, if my fins fell off (equipment) or my suit tore itself off my body. If you use a BCD and it gets punctured and the air leaks out on the way down, could you still make it back to the surface?

Using a stone to sink in variable weight is another crude form of technology. You use the stone as a tool to get deep without swimming. The dangers of course lie descending too fast or too deep or both.

The decision is in the tradeoff of safety vs. advantage. And that's up to the user of the equipment/technology.


I'm not sure I understand the dangers of using fluid goggles vs. a mask. Jason care to expand on that? Rupturing an ear-drum "through poor soft palate control" is equally possible with a mask.

 

[efattah]

Jason's reference to the dangers of fluid goggles is very remarkable, something that few people have noticed. While ascending with a mask, if the soft palate is closed during the ascent, the air in the sinuses can leave via the nose, into the mask. This causes the mask to expand.

When using a nose clip, during the ascent, the expanding sinus air cannot leave via the nose. The only route is down the pharynx into the mouth or lungs. If the soft palate is closed, and a nose clip is used, and the ascent is continued, the ear drums will eventually burst (outwardly) from a reverse squeeze.

I noticed this effect on the very first dive I ever made with fluid goggles and a nose clip. I figured out intuitively to open the soft palate. Others haven't been so lucky. Mic Longhurst of Australia would have to pull off his nose clip during the ascent and air would come exploding out of his nose on the ascent, due to his inability to control his soft palate.