starvation

[andrsn]

i didn't realize how bad the withdrawel could be from freediving when i moved out here to Colorado.

somebody's got to share some first hand experiences of their freediving. someone's got to be in the water somewhere!? let us less fortunate souls live vicariously through you....ppplease!!!

wishfully dreaming,
anderson

 

[JimGlynn]

I just came back from Cozumel, so my memories are still fresh. Twice I went on a dive trip with scuba divers. They scuba(ed), I freedove. One of the most amazing experiences was swimming with a giant eagle ray. The ray was about 45 ft down, just cruising around the sand bottom. I swam over on the surface so that I was right above it, took a solid breathe up and then gently descended and proceeded to swim next to it for about 45 seconds. Truly amazing. It had about a 5 ft wingspan and a really long tail. On another dive in about 30 ft I glided right up next to a parrotfish as it ate coral. The loudness of each bite still blows me away. I also swam with a few turtles and could descend and ascend with them with no fear of DCS. The purity of freediving is humbling.

 

[fjohnson]

andrsn, I hear ya... the pool I've been training in has been shut down for almost 3 weeks... I'm going more crazy!!!
Fred

 

[andrsn]

hmmmmmm... cozzzzzzzzzzumel

how could you describe the pavlovian response to that one?

hey fred, i'm pretty much walking through the snow in my flipflops to get to the pool here. it's just not fun for me when i have no one to train w/. plus, i get stopped every 5 minutes by people asking me what on earth i'm doing. and the creatures i share the pool w/ are borderline frieghtening. :yack

anyone else getting their longblades salty?

andrsn

 

[Erik]

Well...... you could always go back and read my Bahrain story?
My fins still have the salt on them from the unbelievable salinity of the Gulf.
I ride my bike to the pool, yes even now with -25 C, and my fins are strapped to the backpack: I look like a beetle. They're actually good when there's a tail wind!
I'll second the drooling over Coz:inlove
Stay warm friends,
Erik Y.

 

[freediver48]

Sun, Sun, Sun

Hi Anderson,

I hear you as well. My hair is still wet from diving today. I have the story from last Sunday's dive it was really good.

We cancelled our Friday dive because of time conflicts and snow. The weather has been grey and wet for a while now, and even though we had been diving once or twice a week so far it had been 10 days and no diving. This morning seemed typical, until the marine band mentioned SW winds, which often brings
clearing, the energy in my body started pumping dive, dive, dive, but my mind has reservations. After some coffee and some blue spots in the sky we were getting congruent, ok, dive , dive dive, dive. The high tide was at 10:45, and by 10:00 the yoga/tai chi war-up was happening. As I warmed-up on the beach I could see the birds, sea lions, and seals hanging in the bay, good sign. The surface water had less of a string on my face than the past few dives, which was a relief. As I covered the 100 yards to the reef visitors started appearing. A lone sea lion glided beneath me just off the bottom in 20' of water, looking up with questioning, but warm eyes. Soon I was joined by others slightly smaller that would zoom in for a look and dart away. The larger ones took their time and came in much closer. Once on the reef, few fish were to be seen, but with that many faces to feed what reef fish wouldn't be spooky, Small spotted seals soon joined the action as I floated on the surface watching a diving bird checking out the overhangs on the bottom. Carlos Eyles in The Blue Edge talks about the difference between land and marine species responses to human visitors. His observations are that land animals are generally wary on us, while marine creators immediately accept us. He seemed to be right today as the yellow beaked diving bird surfaced within three feet of me, looked at me and gently ruffled its feathers. As I traversed the bay heading back to the beach I felt a strange sense of loss as my comrades gradually faded into the background of the reef, but it was a great sense of
acceptance that characterized this dive. Yes and a bit of sun as well.

In general the surface water has been warming up here over the last 3 weeks, and with it some early blooms, and with them a loss of viz, which peaked in late November. The big thermocline at 50' is still there though as cold as it has been for the last three or four months.

Best wishes, and safe diving,

Doug Morgan,
Lantzville, B.C.

 

[andrsn]

i think that'll have been the third time i've read your story, erik. thanks. and sorry dude, i only have to put up w/ about -10C at worst. :t

i was on the phone yesterday w/ mark labocetta for about 45 minutes constantly begging him to continue his stories of his trip to the gulf of mexico. he thinks i'm nutz! but, he must have felt sorry for me cause he kept talking.

so, doug... are the seals and sea lions wearing picassos up there? i'm still nervous about coming up there this summer since everyone measures the water temp by the shrivel factor. rofl

i have 21 days until i get to scour the reefs of the florida keys for a weekend. tick tock..... :head can time go any slower?!

thanks for the words of comfort gentlemen.

cheers,
anderson

 

[DSV]

Bug Diving

Hey Anderson,

Just a couple of days ago Brett LeMaster his friend Jason and I went Lobster diving. The water is a chilly 78 degrees. I wore my 3mm Scuba Pro suit with a 3mm hooded vest. I was toasty warm. he water is flat like a lake here and we were able to get up into the shallows where the bugs like to feed. I got a total of 6 bugs, but 2 of them were in waist deep water. I was standing on the reef doing my breathe up to get one of them out of a hole that was just big enough for the 4 lbs bug to fit in. I also caught one that was 5 lbs. Those are good sized one for here. I brought my 3 prong along and speared a good sized parrot fish also. Needless to say we cooked them up and had some friends over for dinner. It fed 6 people and the were left overs.

Well hope that helped.

P.S. Brett got skunked.

Sweet Dreams

DSV

 

[SASpearo]

Longblades .......

Yeah ..... what a weekend.

I had to get new gear last week after someone stole most half of it the week before. Thank goodness for insurance !!!

So I thought this weekend would be the perfect time to get the new gear wet. (Un)fortunately a friend of mine has a farm about 250km's outside of Cape Town in the Cedarberg.... we decided to have a weekend on the farm. This guy doesn't freedive, spearfish or even scuba - but he makes one hell of a gunboy

I took my gear with - not really expecting to get it wet. There's a river on the farm, but nothing I can dive in. But on Saturday morning he showed me swim - hole in the mountains. Now let me tell you, I was lugging my new Grinta longblades, snorkel, mask, weight belt and knife over the mountains to get to this hole. It had better be worth it !

Got there after slogging in the sun for about an hour (did I metion it was 42 C ??) - a smallish pool about 12 - 15 m in diameter, directly under a shrivelled waterfall. Absolute beauty - trout all over the place, cliffs all around ...

I got in the water to cool off a little, had a bit of watermelon to give me some energy, and started warming up. It was one of the most peacufull warm-ups I've ever done. Beautifull location, dead quiet ..... I got in the water, and thought - This is it. Everything just felt good, right from the start. I breathed up, jacknifed down, lifted a leg and glided down.

I expected to hit my head after about 5 or so meters, so I was diving with one hand in front of me. At about 10 meters, I couldn't see anything anymore. I stopped at about 20 meters, suddenly very unsure. This hole was DEEP.

I hung around for about a minute, feeling very good about life in general. I had some very good and close friends with me, and a very nice prospect of a future girlfriend was there as well. More about that later.

I got to the surface - just under 2 minutes had passed. I told my buddy how deep I went - he said no way. I got my depth guage and showed it to him. He thought I was kidding ! (he still is)

I went down to the same depth on second and third dives. I spent about 5 minutes doing a BIG breath up for the 4th dive, and started gliding down. 20m passed, 30m passed, then .... 42m .... I got stopped by rock. And incredible 42 meters, only 15 meters across ... magic. I hung in the total blackness for a minute. I just did not feel like getting up for air. I decided to make a very slow ascent ..... 4 minutes 35 seconds after the dive started, I reached the surface. It was the best dive I've ever had. It was neither the longest or the deepest, it was just absolute magic ..... A dive I will never forget.

Regards,
Riaan C

PS: I managed to get the girlfriend as well ..... double bogey !!

 

[andrsn]

riaan,

fiction helps too, thanks. rofl

 

[SASpearo]

Anytime Bro .....

I actually hit bottom at about 3 meters .... quite a bummer. It looked twice as deep as that at least !

Anyhooooo

Ciao,
R

 

[andrsn]

mad spearo disease..

riaan,

i just got done reading sven's reply on personal bests. too funny. i think the one and only difference b/w us spearos and the freedivers is goal orientation. depth of that fish v. depth of that tag. as a spearo, i respect both disciplines equally. well, maybe not too equally since i'm biased, but we're pretty much doing the same as they are, but we're just providing a bigger fashion statement.

so what eqpmnt did you get? i've never heard of what you mentioned. it sounds like one of the new pieces was a pony bottle. i'm assuming that's what you had in that deep puddle w/ the water fall. rofl

where's my two dollars!? oops, i mean FLOATLINE!? zzz

a

 

[SASpearo]

He he he .... errr

No pony bottle, mate .... I just replaced the gear that got stolen - Longblades, wetsuit (I got a crappy second hand one because I used to have a crappy one!!) Mira H2O mask (stop laughing - I like it)

Floatline's done and made up - I just need to finish it (heat - shrink the neds) then I can send it off. I'll have it couriered so that you'll have it before your trip to ft. Watchamacallit ....

BTW: You can try and slag me all you want, but get your behind down here in Cape Town and I'll show you what real diving is. And that's an invitation, not a threat.

 

[andrsn]

just when....

just when i felt i was living a bit of everyone's lives and sensing the enjoyment of your time under water, this goes and happens.

two weeks till i'm down in the keys w/ the cuban! i have a wide angle lens on it's way here for my u/w setup so you guys will be getting some interesting pics of my days in da watah.

 

[DSV]

Andrsn,

It's 8:00am and I just rolled out of bed. I get on this thread and what do I see. A big ol' pile of snow. I'm getting cold just looking at it. Come on man you're making my temp gauge drop as I type. Please no more sharing your pics, OK.

DSV

 

[andrsn]

oops

dsv,

i was trying to edit your photo by making it smaller. yeah, it's great having the authority to. but, something happened and all hell broke loose, and ..... then it was gone. please feel free to put the pic of the broken temp gauge back up.

later, and sorry
anderson

 

[paul]

wet fins

Got my fins wet yesterday at goat island marine reserve (1 hour from home, auckland nz).
no serious depth diving as i didnt have a buddy that day. just fooling around with all protected fish and taking it easy with the other snorklebums, saw a beautiful stingray about 1 m across which i followed for a while. Sure was nice to be in the water

cheers paul

 

[DSV]

No problem I forgot to shrink the photo. I was just trying to show you guys how cold it was here at 8:00 am.

I'll try again.

DSV

 

[thin_air]

the way i look at it, all the snow up here is a good thing for me

last week i had exams (luckily i only had 2 and was finished on monday) but on thursday and friday the weather was so bad we had snow days so that means the exams are put to today and tomorrow. but since i had no exams i get to stay home and do nothing, actually i might go to the pool
oh well i still wish i was in the warm weather

by the way that was our first snow storm of the winter :t rofl

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Well, whilst London, UK hasn't got freezing weather I can hardly step outside the door without the risk of becoming a human plane.

Wind speeds are pretty high (although not as high as in Scotland) so I hope I make it home without pretending to be able to fly!!