For WV-Free Diving-

We are different than the video. Those guys are very strange. No fins, no masks, and they can go as deep as 300 ft. Years ago when we were in shape and free diving in spearfishing tournaments we often dove 70-100 ft while hunting (no SCUBA). Today its more like we float around on top of the water and if we don’t see anything we get back in the boat and drink wine.

So where did you grow up ? If you start as a young age your ears become accustomed to clearing as you go down. You can actually hear the click, click, click click click. The real danger is that if you spear a fish at that depth and it “holes up” you need to stay and work the fish out of its cave. That takes time, and effort-using precious air. I’ve known more than one free diver who is no longer with us because of this. My most memorable and frightening time was 1957 Pacific Coast Championship off Carmel -near Monterey. The water was not clear until 30 ft down and then it was crystal clear-but no light because of the dirty water above. I shot a ling cod at 60 ft but the line was tangled around a rock. After working unsuccessfully I knew I was in trouble. I left the gun and fish and started up knowing was totally spent and out of air. When I reached the surface I could sense my legs becoming numb and the numbness rising up to my waist. I had tunnel vision and knew I was about to “black out”. When that happens your body does what it wants which is to breath and if you do that underwater you breath water and you then sink. Another diver near by-and a competitor-knew I was in trouble and came over to hold me until I came out of it. The article I posted by Terry Maas ( a friend) is very illustrative of the dangers of “shallow water blackout”.

Bottom line-this is not “snorkeling”. A present problem we have is younger divers who push the limits and we are seeing more and more drownings.

Interesting stuff on the HBO program. The “competition” they mentioned is totally different than spearfishing competitions. In the former there is no “hunt” involved its simply a dead drop-straight down as far as your breath can take you-then a release of whatever assistance has carried you down-weights, rope, etc-then back up with others near the surface in case of a black out. In spearfishing competitions you are usually by yourself and once at your depth you are hunting into holes, caves, etc and chasing fish.

Here’s kind of a cool video made by a free diver with a go-pro camera. Shows some 100 ft dives for hunting. These are young studs. Like I say for me now-its mostly 30 ft stuff and then back on the boat for wine. But we still at least get in the water-just not like what you see in this video-anymore-but there was a time.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=vido+deep+spearfishing&&view=detail&mid=3485631C6EF9148D96E23485631C6EF9148D96E2&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dvido%2Bdeep%2Bspearfishing%26%26FORM%3DVDVVXX

By the way: what’s depicted in the video with the woman is very, very typical. What happens is that everyone wants to get in the water so everyone in the boat goes in. Hopefully the anchor is set well enough where you don’t have to worry. But sometimes the anchor isn’t and will drag across the bottom causing the boat to drift. After every single dive I will look for the boat no matter how far away I am to see if it is drifting. Most of the time -unless a strong current is running-you can swim to it, get in, motor back to the dive area and set the anchor. But I’ve had to be picked up by other boats more than once.