Much respect.

Today my dive buddy and I went "snorkeling" at a local rock quarry just to see if we could find out how deep it was. Mind you, I was wearing my 3mm Henderson boots and my fins are the XL ScubaPro Jets. He had on some slip on booties and wore his OMS fins. (Dir style fins.)

We both just knew that we were going to kill our legs by trying to find the bottom in this quarry. The deepest we were able to get was around 18-20 feet (it was only 18-20 feet deep). Which was good for us, not much swimming to really do.

We swam around the lake twice, taking turns (we are fat and out of shape) swimming under water. I'd dive down to the bottom and than swim in a certain direction. Once I came up, he'd swim on top to me then he dive to the bottom, in a certain direction, follow the bottom, and then come up. Over and over we did that. Several times we'd both dive down and swim side-by-side.

Well, it seemed the more we did it, the longer it seemed we could stay down. We both did a combination flutter kick and mermaid(?) kick. It was a work out with these DIR style fins on. We also played around, after we got back to the shallow part with hyperventilating ourselves and holding out breathe and diving down to the bottom. We were able to stay down even longer with that. I read some where that the rush of oxygen to your head tricks it into thinking it has plenty of air and you don't get the feeling of needing air as fast.

All and all, I really enjoyed it and I'm considering getting some free diving (long) fins or some other type more for free diving/snorkeling. We had a blast but, it has worn us both out. If either of us can get out of bed tomorrow, we may go do it again.

Just giving my respect to the free divers and snorkelers.

Michael

You could dive longer after a while because your diving reflex was kicking in. Also you were likely relaxing more as you continued.

There is a lot more to efficient breath holding than hyperventilation. Proper "breathing up" will safely get you much more dive time, and proper weighting and long flexible fins will help too.

In Florida there are many freediving courses, but I would not know about availability in Mississippi.

I've freedive spearfished the oil rigs off LA, and have to say it doesn't get much better than that!

Chad

Hi.

In fact - You shouldn't hyperventilate at all since this is considered very dangerous. You could experience black-out upon your ascend and if not with buddy who would know what to do - you also could experience the crossing The border.

Petr

mwhities:

We also played around, after we got back to the shallow part with hyperventilating ourselves and holding out breathe and diving down to the bottom. We were able to stay down even longer with that. I read some where that the rush of oxygen to your head tricks it into thinking it has plenty of air and you don't get the feeling of needing air as fast.

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It's my understanding that the urge to breath is triggered by a build up of CO2 and when you hyperventilate it sort of "Cleanses" your lungs of CO2 so that your body does not get the urge to breath in as quickly.

Be carefull with that and reserve it's use for emergency situations. It is not uncommon to cause someone to blackout.

Okay... So what is "breathing up," as opposed to breathing deep and fast?

Fish_Whisperer:

Okay... So what is "breathing up," as opposed to breathing deep and fast?

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"Breathing up" is the technique whereby the diver ventilates (without the "hyper") so that he can warm up and fully oxygenate his lungs in preparing for a dive or a breath hold. A proper breathe up includes breathing diaphragmatically (belly breathing and using the lungs fully) and sometimes breathing with the face in the water (using snorkel) to help induce the mammalian dive reflex. The breathe up is also an opportunity for the diver to focus mentally and visualize his dive or breath hold. Although deep, breathing is never fast.

If you guys keep that up you will be amazed at what happens to your scuba air consumption!

When you are preparing to dive down settle down and get at ease. You don't want to hyperventilate and fool your body but it's considered safe to take 3 nice deep cleansing breaths before you lock one in and go for it. Pike down with your feet up in the air so their weight starts your descent. Wear enough weight to let you go down but it's good to always be slightly positive. This takes some experimentation between suits and depth.

If it were up to me skin-diving would really be taught including an open water dive before a student touches a regulator.

pete

Nice..... Thank you! And yes, I agree with you, Spectrum. It might keep a lot of n00bs (like me), from agonizing over their awful SAC, too.

Fish_Whisperer:

Nice..... Thank you! And yes, I agree with you, Spectrum. It might keep a lot of n00bs (like me), from agonizing over their awful SAC, too.

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Let me be just one of many to tell you that freediving, even utilizing some of the training principles of freediving, will greatly improve your air consumption rate!

Thanks for all the great conversations in here. It's amazing how people can do this.

When I was "scouting" the quarry, only thing I had on was shorts, boots, mask and fins. I didn't even think about any kind of exposure suit, let alone any weight. I wish we had a deeper place to scuba/swim at. If it would help my SAC rate, I'd spend all day Saturday "free diving" then all day Sunday scuba diving. My main goal is to get my SAC rate down, I need to get it down really low. I know it goes down the more I dive but, I'm not going to be getting to many dives in.

Thanks all for the grand knowledge.

Michael