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SCUBA or not to SCUBA????

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.

What are you diving (SCUBA or Freediving or Both)?

  • Not Certified, Don't Plan On Becoming

    Votes: 24 15.0%

  • Not, Certified, Plan On Becoming

    Votes: 14 8.8%

  • Certified Open Water

    Votes: 38 23.8%

  • Certified Adanced Open Water - DiveMaster

    Votes: 51 31.9%

  • Certified for Technical or an Instructor

    Votes: 33 20.6%
  • Total voters
    160
Trouble doesn't dive (or swim).

Hello,

I grew up in a scuba club.
I started in the pool when I was 12 and was hardly able to carry a 12 l tank...
Nobody in my family dives, Jacques-Yves Cousteau is the one who (indirectly) got me started. The divers even nicknamed me Cousteau's daughter.

Both freediving and scuba-diving (and ocean swimming) have always been my ways to succesfully escape frightened parents, nagging people and Trouble in general : the true ways to freedom and peace of mind (and silent rebellion !).
Of course people said it was too risky, I was too young, I was crazy and so on... but my passion for the water kept me going.

Now all of a sudden everything I do seems more legitimate to the non-diving because now I'm a certified scuba-instructor and for 1 year: a research diver at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

In fact nothing has changed, I am still doing the same 'outrageous' things I used to do: sneaking off early in the morning or at lunch to swim a few km, getting myself submerged under at least a few meters of water whenever I can...

Sometimes I blow bubbles, sometimes not but my worries always stay ashore. And That is the great thing about diving (free or scuba).

Have fun in the water!

Lynn
 
hi

Certified to Rescue Diver, getting DMs and TRYING to get a job.

cheers
 
I have a desire to become an underwater archaeologist (anthropology major here) and an interest in cave diving, so naturally SCUBA is a must. I grew up reading Jaques Cousteau books and watching that show on the Discovery Channel (Undersea Adventures maybe?). I originally got into freediving because I couldn't afford to SCUBA -- not that I have any plans on giving it up once I do get certified! I'm going to be getting my open-water cert in April (late 19th b-day present hehe), and from there I hope to move to Nitrox, Trimix, penetration wreck and cave diving. I just wonder how the hell I'm going to pay for it! :duh
 
don't become a scuba instructor in order to freedive. I have actually stopped teaching scuba full time in order to train (I now work in a dive store so am a bit more dry!)
when I was a full time instructor in warm sunny egypt, I worked 6 days a week, 10 hours a day and by the time I got a day off I couldn't freedive
a)because none of my buddies had a day off
b) because I was exhausted from the above
c) because I had to do my laundry
d) because I had had enough of being in the sea or on a boat (it IS possible) and
e) because I usually had so much Nitrogen in my system that my dive computer would not have let me freedive anyway....

maybe its better if you work somewhere less busy than the red sea

just a few thoughts

sam
 
Interesting - how does your computer tell you that you are OK to freedive? I used to use the surface interval warning triange on my stinger as a warning not to freedive - and then add an hour on top of that to be safe.
 
well I go by the No Fly Signal on the theory that if you have enough nitrogen bubbles in you not to fly then you probably also have too many to keep making fast ascents (freediving). Plus my Stinger will not actually let me put it in freedive mode if I still have no fly time to do
 
Isn't the no fly time 24 hours after your last dive, as long as you didn't break the decompression profile? I'd say 24 hours was a bit much - but I suppose better to be safe than sorry.
 
no on the stinger it varies until all the nitrogen is out of your system. I think the minimum is twelve hours but the amount I was diving it was often a lot more than that.

probably is conservative but I wasn't in a position to risk it, if I ended up in the chamber I'd have lost my job!

Sam
 
hi

Your dampening my spirits, I want to be a DM so that when im out there I can also have the chance to freedive as well.

cheers
 
working as scuba dm/instr and freediving


for many years when freediving was just a fun change from scuba diving (i was dm for a few years until i started teaching) the amount of time i spent freediving was actually minor. of course it did depend very much on access to good sites for freediving. but as sam pointed out when you spend 2-3 hours in water every day making bubbles you most likely can't be asked to get up early for a freediving session. and no way i would go freediving late (saturation, exhaustion...never do any laundry, really).

recently i decided to stop my scuba ambitions in orer to spend more time freediving. i scuba dive on off days now. that's a day when i don't freedive.

and that's the way i like it!


good diving everyone

roland



p.s. currently diving in dahab
 
oh sorry!
don't let it dampen your spirits, just make sure that if you do get a job you have enough time off to do the freediving!
might be easier as a DM anyway
 
hi

Yeah but I have freedived directly after scuba a fair bit. I asked the instructors if it woukd be ok and they said yeah so I went ahead and freedove .

cheers
 
freediving immediately after scuba - really daft idea. Any instructor who said it was ok does not know his stuff - as a DM you should know that fast ascents are not a good idea on scuba as the nitrogen does not have a chance to escape slowly enough (the shaken coke bottle theory). What's the difference between ascending fast with scuba or ascending slow, taking your kit off, getting back in the sea and freediving with super fast ascents? not much...

not recommended. unfortunately a LOT of dive guides have been lost in the Red Sea in this way. In most cases no body was recovered so we don't know if this was due to BO/Samba (more likely) or deco problems but it makes a lot of sense NOT to do it!

The second problem with mixing scuba with freediving is that you will not usually have a freedive buddy on the boat if you are working which is probably the main reason for the losses in the red sea and elsewhere. Take your big fins on board and its just too tempting to jump in on your own in the lunch break, you're tired from working scuba all week, the sea is too blue and too deep and before you know it you're in trouble.

don't want to dampen anyone's spirits, just want you to be careful. Last year in Hurghada alone I knew of three dms/instructors lost in this way...

take care
Sam
 
hi

Thats enough evidence. I wont do it anymore. What if you freedive before you Scuba, should be safe I guess.

cheers
 
freedive before scuba - no worries mate - just get up early and go freediving first (but take a buddy!)
 
Both. I am a PADI DM and hold to something now, a CMAS *** Nordic Scuba Diver and Dive Marchal. I like both but really enjoy to go out with not so much gear.

For the freediving scuba diving combination I was told that as earlier said the fast ascent could be a problem. This should if I understand it right be because the production of microbubbles and bubbles will increase. However the major problem is that all diving may produce bubbles, mainly microbubbles. These microbubbles should not be a problem but if you are unlucky they can sort of meet by accident and result in a bigger bubble. This is why a few scuba divers get bends even after moderate diving. The final bubble filters are your lungs where microbubbles and maybe some smaller bubbles will be caught and ventilated. This happens more or less every time you have been diving. This is not very dangerous since these bubbles are in your blood on the right side of your lungs i.e on their way back to the lungs from different body parts to get new oxygen and also because they are small.

The dangerous thing that can happen if you will practice freediving after a scuba session is that even a moderate freedive to 5 m to free your anchor can compress these bubbles so they will pass the lungs and continue with the blood to vital organs like your brain or heart. When you surface these bubbles will grow slightly bigger again. Growing bubbles nitrogen bubbles in vital organs is not very good.

I guess freediving requires training in the same way as scuba does. Tables and safety standards as well. Otherwise it will always be sport for the few and regarded as something quite dangerous.

Keep up the good and safe diving.

Robert
 
i like freediving

Since i was i little -i liked to see movies about scuba diving-and i said one day i going to have my own wet suit---Now i got my own wet suit --but only to do freediving...

__________________

In don't like scuba diving...
 
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