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Old 04-17-2017, 11:38 AM   #8
growingupninja
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Los Angeles
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Re: Mitigating Risk For Complete Noob

Quote:
Originally Posted by blitzemall View Post
I've had enough of watching all the amazing videos and have decided to make this the year I go beyond light snorkeling and have a go at some spearfishing.

Of course, with a family and a general desire to stay alive a bit longer, I'd like to stay safe as I begin this journey.

I plan to enroll in a FD course and follow all safety protocol including diving with companions.

But I see so much about SWB I can't help but feel a bit concerned about the odds as I move forward into deeper water.

So I've decided to keep it light and try to keep my dives shorter and shallower as a rule.

My question is: given the fact that I'm in good physical shape and intend to follow safety measures combined with the above, can this sport be made "safe" from SWB?
The safest the sport can be made is if you dive with a trained buddy and follow procedures that you would learn at a legit freediving course (an $80 PADI course is not legit). You would learn self rescue techniques as well as buddy rescue techniques. Following those procedures, you would be as close to 100% safe as you can be... In the history of modern (last 20 years) competitive, constant weight freediving around the world--we're talking thousands and thousands of drops to literally hundreds of feet (the current CWT record is OVER 400')--we have had ONE fatality but thousands of SWB's. I knew that diver and how he died; the safety protocols and competition rules have since been amended and in the light of knowledge since gained we look at his final dive profiles think, 'RIP, brother, and WTF were you thinking???'.

When you add situations which can arise in spearfishing such as: dangerous/rocky entries, poor visibility, stormy conditions, currents, extreme fatigue, hypothermia, overhead environments, recovering with big angry fish that can breathe underwater, darkness, underwater structure, entanglement, inattentive or untrained buddies, etc, risks go up and up and up.

Take a good course with a knowledgable, experienced instructor. You can learn the facts and management of SWB incidents; there is a lot of dumb stuff and incomplete information on the internet. I teach the PFI program now in Los Angeles, http://www.socalspearit.com/freedive-classes
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