I’m a southern boy, warm water, so 5 or 6 mil suits are just not in my frame of reference. To me, the best wetsuit is a tee shirt. But, being terminally curious, I wanted to try some of that freezing water. Went up to Freedive-apaloosa last year and loved it, 73 degree surface, 35 degree bottom. Bizzare, but fine in a 3 mil. This year, Fondueset(Chris) invited a bunch of divers to join him in northern Michigan, water temp , high 40s or a little more. You know, balmy summer by his standards. . . . . nuts, completely nuts. But, Laminar and others were coming, so it was too good to pass up, especially since Chris let me use his 6 mil Elios (which fit perfect).
What a crew. Chris was as wonderfully twisted in person as he is when posting, excellent diver, super photographer who comes with an encyclopedic knowledge of how yoga and other eastern disciplines (of which I am totally ignorant) add to freediving. Host, guide, and general, make it happen, guy. Claire, Chris’s daughter, with whom I had dove in Little Cayman. Monofin specialist, getting into no fins. Did I say something about cold resistance? I’m in a 6 mil and she is diving the river, no suit. Laminar (Pete), massively competent, great teacher, exhale diver par excellence, source of all freediving knowledge. Also a super nice guy. I’m glad he likes to talk about freediving, cause I just about wore his ears out with questions. Alicia, godess mother who makes the way straight, kept us all going, making sure everybody had what they needed. She is a tiny little, very attractive lady with an independent streak a mile wide and an astonishing tolerance for cold water, who has led a most interesting life. The conversation was as good as the diving. Freedivers are an interesting group. How often can you get two chinese speakers in the same room?
I’m not sure how he pulled it off, but Chris arranged quite a reception for me. He had warned me that the weather was "changable". Here is how it went. Arrive at the hotel, weather is beautiful, suit up in the hotel room, picture window overlooking the lake (very up town diving), walk out to the car. There is a small dark cloud on the horizon. Drive 5 minutes to the spot, its even got a nice parking lot. Now the sky is dark and threatening, thunder in the distance. Walk 50 paces to the water. Now its sheet lightning and a big, black, nasty squall line is coming fast. Hmm, maybe this is not such a good time to get in the water. BOOM. Lightning, pretty close. Back to the car. By the time we got back to the parking lot, the temp has dropped 30 degrees and it’s sleeting, which quickly turned into small hail. I’m standing there in 6 mil armor, agog at stuff I’d never seen before as the hail got bigger, coming down so thick it started to cover the ground, bouncing off cars and up 6-8-10 feet. The sound is a deafening, a staccato series of bangs, like being inside a steel barrel as a hundred soccer players threw rocks at it. . The hail kept getting bigger, soon the size of grapes and started to HURT! Into the car, quick! What a scene. 3 minutes later, all stops, the sun starts to come out, the temp goes back up and it was a summer day again, except for the piles of hail stones. We walk back down and get in the water, It almost seemed normal to see hailstones still floating in the water around us. . . . . . "Changeable" he wasn’t kidding!
I got in the water wearing 1mil shorts under a 3 mil vest under 5 mil Elios bottoms under a 6 mil Elios top. If I’m counting right, that’s 15 mils on my mid section. I was almost instantly cold when I hit the water, face on fire which quickly turned so numb I could not hold the snorkel properly and was leaking water like crazy. Starting to shiver in less than an hour. You know, freediving has a lot of parts. The basics are pretty much the same no matter what kind of diving you do, but those basics go together in subtly different ways and I could not get them to fit. Wearing enough lead for 6 divers in Florida, floating like a cork in a straight jacket, can hardly get off the surface, can’t get my co2 level down, no dive reflex, can’t balance underwater, coming back to the surface, breaching like an out of control whale after 30 seconds at 6 meters, lungs screaming for air. I’d long since forgotten how difficult it is to be a newbie. Respect to all you new divers.
Well, what was the diving like? Very pretty and mostly low key, shallow. Vis was less than perfect (it had been raining a lot) but still nice, 30-40 ft. ,most places. At times the water acquired a vivid electric blue that looked like the Caribbean, very good stuff. The diving was around rock break walls, little wreaks, big pipelines and a river mouth, which was a surprise and turned out to be a quite a place. The vis was poor in the river flow, maybe 6-8 ft, but the fish were wild. Big schools of all kinds of fairly large, eating size, fish. Drum, several species of suckers, muskie, walleye, carp, even a salmon, etc etc, 12 species, all milling around in a small area. Do a drift through them and you felt like you were lying down in the middle of an 8 lane highway at night with a zillion cars going by, no lights. The fish would run over you, so close you could touch them. The water warmed up a little as the week went on and the jetties became full of life, especially schools of suckers (just like goatfish for all you tropical types.) You want to perfect your spearfishing body language? Try sneaking up inside a school of suckers. They are so spooky, the school will bolt if your hand moves too fast from 30 feet away. My skills were rusty, but came back fast. Very fun.
By the last day, I felt like it was coming together. Still wearing a ridiculous amount of rubber, but comfortable and warm, with exhale dives approaching the times I do in warm water. Did just enough depth to know for sure that the 30 m recreational dives we do in the Bahamas would not be fun in a 6 mil, assuming I could even do it. Suddenly acquiring a 50 lb anchor after passing neutral buoyancy is an interesting experience. I’ll give you this on cold water depth, the trip down is FAST. Hats off to all you deep divers in cold water.
A very fun trip. My sincere thanks to all who made it possible.
Connor
What a crew. Chris was as wonderfully twisted in person as he is when posting, excellent diver, super photographer who comes with an encyclopedic knowledge of how yoga and other eastern disciplines (of which I am totally ignorant) add to freediving. Host, guide, and general, make it happen, guy. Claire, Chris’s daughter, with whom I had dove in Little Cayman. Monofin specialist, getting into no fins. Did I say something about cold resistance? I’m in a 6 mil and she is diving the river, no suit. Laminar (Pete), massively competent, great teacher, exhale diver par excellence, source of all freediving knowledge. Also a super nice guy. I’m glad he likes to talk about freediving, cause I just about wore his ears out with questions. Alicia, godess mother who makes the way straight, kept us all going, making sure everybody had what they needed. She is a tiny little, very attractive lady with an independent streak a mile wide and an astonishing tolerance for cold water, who has led a most interesting life. The conversation was as good as the diving. Freedivers are an interesting group. How often can you get two chinese speakers in the same room?
I’m not sure how he pulled it off, but Chris arranged quite a reception for me. He had warned me that the weather was "changable". Here is how it went. Arrive at the hotel, weather is beautiful, suit up in the hotel room, picture window overlooking the lake (very up town diving), walk out to the car. There is a small dark cloud on the horizon. Drive 5 minutes to the spot, its even got a nice parking lot. Now the sky is dark and threatening, thunder in the distance. Walk 50 paces to the water. Now its sheet lightning and a big, black, nasty squall line is coming fast. Hmm, maybe this is not such a good time to get in the water. BOOM. Lightning, pretty close. Back to the car. By the time we got back to the parking lot, the temp has dropped 30 degrees and it’s sleeting, which quickly turned into small hail. I’m standing there in 6 mil armor, agog at stuff I’d never seen before as the hail got bigger, coming down so thick it started to cover the ground, bouncing off cars and up 6-8-10 feet. The sound is a deafening, a staccato series of bangs, like being inside a steel barrel as a hundred soccer players threw rocks at it. . The hail kept getting bigger, soon the size of grapes and started to HURT! Into the car, quick! What a scene. 3 minutes later, all stops, the sun starts to come out, the temp goes back up and it was a summer day again, except for the piles of hail stones. We walk back down and get in the water, It almost seemed normal to see hailstones still floating in the water around us. . . . . . "Changeable" he wasn’t kidding!
I got in the water wearing 1mil shorts under a 3 mil vest under 5 mil Elios bottoms under a 6 mil Elios top. If I’m counting right, that’s 15 mils on my mid section. I was almost instantly cold when I hit the water, face on fire which quickly turned so numb I could not hold the snorkel properly and was leaking water like crazy. Starting to shiver in less than an hour. You know, freediving has a lot of parts. The basics are pretty much the same no matter what kind of diving you do, but those basics go together in subtly different ways and I could not get them to fit. Wearing enough lead for 6 divers in Florida, floating like a cork in a straight jacket, can hardly get off the surface, can’t get my co2 level down, no dive reflex, can’t balance underwater, coming back to the surface, breaching like an out of control whale after 30 seconds at 6 meters, lungs screaming for air. I’d long since forgotten how difficult it is to be a newbie. Respect to all you new divers.
Well, what was the diving like? Very pretty and mostly low key, shallow. Vis was less than perfect (it had been raining a lot) but still nice, 30-40 ft. ,most places. At times the water acquired a vivid electric blue that looked like the Caribbean, very good stuff. The diving was around rock break walls, little wreaks, big pipelines and a river mouth, which was a surprise and turned out to be a quite a place. The vis was poor in the river flow, maybe 6-8 ft, but the fish were wild. Big schools of all kinds of fairly large, eating size, fish. Drum, several species of suckers, muskie, walleye, carp, even a salmon, etc etc, 12 species, all milling around in a small area. Do a drift through them and you felt like you were lying down in the middle of an 8 lane highway at night with a zillion cars going by, no lights. The fish would run over you, so close you could touch them. The water warmed up a little as the week went on and the jetties became full of life, especially schools of suckers (just like goatfish for all you tropical types.) You want to perfect your spearfishing body language? Try sneaking up inside a school of suckers. They are so spooky, the school will bolt if your hand moves too fast from 30 feet away. My skills were rusty, but came back fast. Very fun.
By the last day, I felt like it was coming together. Still wearing a ridiculous amount of rubber, but comfortable and warm, with exhale dives approaching the times I do in warm water. Did just enough depth to know for sure that the 30 m recreational dives we do in the Bahamas would not be fun in a 6 mil, assuming I could even do it. Suddenly acquiring a 50 lb anchor after passing neutral buoyancy is an interesting experience. I’ll give you this on cold water depth, the trip down is FAST. Hats off to all you deep divers in cold water.
A very fun trip. My sincere thanks to all who made it possible.
Connor
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