(SF) Bay Area FreeDivers - An new freediving group

[Parapsycho]

Hey everyone:

I started a group on Upcoming.com. It's called Bay Area FreeDivers. There are a few diving groups in the San Francisco Bay Area, but they all seem to be either SCUBA or extremely focused on spearfishing. I'm looking to give people an alternative that is focused on recreational and possibly competitive freediving. I dont have anything against spearing, I'm just not interested in it, so I wanted to start a group with a different focus. Also, when I say 'competitive' I dont neccesarily mean entering competitions, but also striving for new PBs and encouraging each other.

I'm going to try to plan meetings at least every few weeks if we get people interested. We'll discuss equipment, training techniques, safety, underwater ecology, ect. We'll also try to schedule regular outings and trips.

Hopefully someone will be interested.

The link is:
Bay Area FreeDivers

 

[kale]

That sounds like a pretty cool idea. I mainly spearfish, but a man can only eat so much fish, so when my fridge is stocked I still like to go out and practice freediving. I would really like to do some more freediving at monastery beach. That place is great.

 

[sanso]

Sounds great!
As posted in this thread, I'll be in Santa Clara from June 17th through 23rd. If You have a get-together that week, maybe I could join in?

 

[Metridium]

Hi Parapsycho,

Sounds like a good idea, so I joined your list. I know and dive with a few people in Calif. interested in just freediving itself, but it would be great to know more people in the Bay Area. I'd also like to find people interested in freedive competition oriented pool trainings as well.

David

 

[Parapsycho]

Thanks for joining. Sorry I havent been on DB for a while. Had some personal issues come up in the past month.

If anyone else is interested in joining, I'm still interested in seeing if we can get this going.

 

[Metridium]

Parapsycho,

Glad your still interested. Even with just 3 or 4 people that should allow us to have an occasional freedive day. I am committed the next couple of weekends to other stuff, but after that lets try to schedule something.

David

 

[Parapsycho]

Cool.

Where do you usually go diving at?

I've lived out here for 3 years and havent done much diving. I've dived in Lake Anza in Tilden regional park. I've heard that Bass Lake is supposed to be good, as well as Lake Folsom.

Havent done any shore diving yet.

 

[BayAreaDiver]

Hi everyone,

I just saw the thread tonight and Im really interested in meeting. I live in the bay area and I freedive down in monterey, usually butterfly house or carmel beach. Im headed down to monterey again this friday if you guys have anythig planned. Im really interested in meeting other people to dive with and share/learn from.

 

[Parapsycho]

Would anyone be interested in a dive at Shadow Cliffs in Pleasanton?

It's a spring-fed gravel-quarry-turned-lake that's now part of the East Bay Regional Parks District.

I couldnt find any exact data, but there are supposedly spots up to 100 feet deep. The water temp is in the upper 70's through September.

[ame="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Shadow+Cliffs+Regional+Park,+United+States&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=47.301626,113.818359&ie=UTF8&cd=1&ll=37.671898,-121.832328&spn=0.023234,0.055575&t=k&z=15&iwloc=addr&om=1"]Satelite Map[/ame]

Official Park Site

If it's good, maybe we can make that our regular diving location...

 

[kale]

That looks like a good place. It said there is a designated swimming area and it sound like there is boat traffic outside of that, how deep is the swimming area? What's the vis like? I wouldn't be able to make it up that far anyway, but I think Monastery beach would be the best place that I know of and I could make that.

 

[Parapsycho]

I posted a message to an open water swiming group, asking about it.

Their reply was that you have to have a special permit to dive there and that vis is like 5 feet. I'm not sure if this is true, but I definately got a "Find Someplace Else!!!" vibe.

I've never been ocean diving before, and I dont drive which really sucks for freediving. I'm thinking I need to live closer to the water.

 

[monkeyhatfork]

it's probably too far to make a regular spot but you should check out tahoe, I've dove thier several times this summer and its unreal, like 100ft vis, just have to get used to the altitude, depth is not a problem the lake gets over a mile deep. I'll try to take some video and post it next time. Normally I dive folsom cause it's close to my house but folsom lake sucks the visibilty is horrible, I think many more crytal clear lakes can be found in the sierra mountains, I'm going to start searching them out. For now I mainly just stick with dynamics in the pool. Hope you have luck finding something in your area, when I get my shit together I'll try to hook up with you guys

 

[kale]

I'd love to dive in some clear lakes like Tahoe. I remember hiking above a lake in the mountains that had some of the clearest water I've ever seen and from above we could see a plane that had crashed and sank to the bottom. I want to go back and dive it some time. I did some freshwater diving in Wisconsin, that was cool. But I live near the beach and there are nothing but muddy lakes around here.
Make some of your friends take you down to Monterey or up to Sonoma county. We are blessed to live near the ocean and to be able to dive in it and once you get in and see some of it you will be hooked.
Kale

 

[Parapsycho]

I started a Meetup.com group;

Unfortunately, the only diving related category is SCUBA, so I had to list us under that, but we're also listed under 'swimming'.

Bay Area FreeDivers

 

[juan heredia]

Please send a email, I'd like to met you for free diving. Thanks.

Juan
Natijuan97@hotmail.com