How many of you like to free dive and scuba, can it become dangerous?

[dumpsterDiver]

My biggest mistake while freediving is trying to take a breath from my reg, only to realize it's my snorkel!
I won't do both on the same day, get my mind clear as to what I am doing.

Freedivers are taught to remove the snorkel from their mouth upon descent, so this issue should not arise?

 

[Subcooled]

After a SCUBA dive you are offgassing and the excess nitrogen wants out. Out = air in the lungs, or air in the bubbles in your blood stream (or any air space within the body). If the excess nitrogen gets into the bubbles in the bloodstream then it is NOT clever to squeeze the bubbles smaller and thus allow them to get into nasty places prior to re-expansion.

No freediving after SCUBA diving.

Also note that an emergency free ascent after a scuba dive is not similar to a freediving ascent.

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This post does not constitute expert advice, and you will die after following these instructions. Just don't know how soon.

 

[Akimbo]

The general consensus is that you should't freedive after SCUBA, as this can provoke a DCS hit….

+1 for Doc’s post. Though this is a general rule of thumb, it depends a lot on what level of freediving you do. I have been doing both for more than 50 years, never been bent, and have taken a 4½ day freediving course. Freediving to less than 25' after a Scuba dive that is well within NDL limits is fine. Not many divers who are not very active and/or trained in modern freediving can get much deeper than 30' with a total dive time of more than 45 seconds anyway… even though it seems like 5 minutes!

However I would avoid freediving before or after decompression (stop) dives and/or on surface intervals where you might be approaching NDL limits. There has been a misconception that freedivers can’t be bent. Granted you have to be a very advanced apniest, but it does happen.

The Hazzards of Freediving | DIVER magazine

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Where I live and dive many times we will freedive first for abalone then take a break and maybe go out for a tank dive afterwards.
But never in reverse.
We only freedive in the 10' to 30' range which is fairly benign, so it probably wouldn't cause any problems to tank dive first, but we like to be fresh for freediving since it's much more demanding so that's one reason we do it first.

 

[Bob DBF]

Where I live and dive many times we will freedive first for abalone then take a break and maybe go out for a tank dive afterwards.
But never in reverse.
We only freedive in the 10' to 30' range which is fairly benign, so it probably wouldn't cause any problems to tank dive first, but we like to be fresh for freediving since it's much more demanding so that's one reason we do it first.

Although this is the way I dive now, from '75 to well into the '90's, I would do two AL80's before Ab diving. For those who don't know, the local diving involves a good surface swim and that may get you out to 60' of water. I was diving tables while starting deep and diving back up towards shore giving me some longer SI's. Between the shallow dives, long swims, and SI's, I didn't worry too much. In the 90's I started diving from a boat, doing dives closer to NDL and started freediving before tank diving, no sense being screwed by a bounce dive at the wrong time. Also around that time there was an increase in Ab poaching so I did not want any confusion over how I got my limit, so my tanks are full until my Abs are in the cooler.

The one thing I miss is that the tank dives had my ears clearing quickly so when I started Ab diving I could get deeper faster and spend more time at depth.



Bob
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I think that advocating unsafe and dangerous practices is both stupid and foolish. That is why I don't tell people to do what I do. Dsix36