Video - Free Diving the Union Express In Nice Viz.!

[ricki]

Visited the wreck of the Union Express recently with the Sea Dog Diver out of Pompano Dive Center. It is a good operation and nice dive. I was scooter free diving as usual, this time in almost nil current and viz. around 100 ft. vertically. Happy days! It was like being in a massive several hundred foot bathtub of clear blue water. The resulting video is pretty interesting as a result. Enjoy!

Click Photo For Video
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[ricki]

I was trying out the Zeagle Ascent Free Diving BC for the first time. If you have a power failure below a certain depth you need to abandon the scooter and start your ascent to assure you arrive there in one piece. I reasoned the Ascent BC might allow me to return myself AND the scooter in lieu of abandoning it. It is an interesting system. I actually introduced a bit of air on ascent near the bottom to slightly increase the speed and ease of ascent. You still need to stop at around 15 ft. to listen for boat traffic if there is much around. Also, some like to pause at shallow depth and ascend more slowly to try to avoid DCS issues. I'm still evaluating the Ascent system but is sure seems to be a useful aid to have on board for scooter free diving.

More about the“Ascent” Buoyancy Control Belt for free divers (or Emergency Personnel with no time to suit up fully!) at:

Florida Skin Diver

I spoke with the designer, Chad Carney, this is his website about the device. Decided it was worth getting one for my protection, that of the scooter. Come to find it might even have far more routine advantages in buoyancy shifts in normal scooter free diving. You can even hook up a second stage to it for emergency breathing but that potentially opens a whole can of worms (potentially nasty injurious even lethal ones too). So, I would think long and hard about even bothering to carry an second stage free diving.

It is an interesting device and perhaps taylor made for scooter free diving, without that exact application in mind.