27.5 meters under the sea -- on one breath of air.

I haven't posted for a while. Busy with other things. Summer hiking in Canada. (No pictures. I never get tired of the scenery, but pictures of it end up all looking the same.) This and that.

But I just got back from taking freediving classes at Performance Freediving International in Ft. Lauderdale. I've enjoyed snorkeling and freediving all my life, but for most of that time I was unable to get below 15 feet, sometimes more like 10 feet. In May I took a beginning freediving class and made it to 42 feet. I was confident that under the right conditions I could make it to 50 feet, and was hopeful that with the right instruction maybe, just maybe, I might make it to 60 feet. When I spoke with Erin Magee (U.S. Women's constant ballast record holder at 71 meters -- 233 feet) at PFI, she encouraged me to take their intermediate and advanced classes back to back, and told me they could get me diving to 75 feet. I knew that was simply not possible for me, with my limited breath-hold ability, but I hoped that maybe they could get me to 60 feet.

We learned about diving physics (Boyle's law, partial pressures, etc.) diving physiology (how changing levels of O2 and CO2 affect the body, how the urge to breathe is unrelated to actual O2 level, how changing pressure with depth affects O2 levels in the blood etc.) and diving psychology (how various real and imagined factors affect heart rate and metabolism, etc.) We learned rescue techniques, warm-up methods, proper weighting, entry, and how hard to fin at various stages of the dive (finning too hard uses oxygen less efficiently, just as hard acceleration uses more gas to go the same distance). We learned how to equalize your ears, and how to get air out of your lungs to equalize your ears at depths where the lungs are compressed so much that there's just not very much volume available.

We did static apnea in the pool after learning how to prepare and relax. Static apnea is holding your breath, totally relaxed. I did 3:45 in the intermediate class, and later, 4:15 in the advanced class. My previous best, in my beginning class was 3:21. I did not do so well at dynamic apnea, which is swimming under water. I did around 1 1/2 lengths of a 25-yard pool, probably between 35 and 40 yards, wearing long fins and a wet suit. With the fins and no suit I managed a full lap. No fins and no suit I did a length, but they never taught us no-fins swimming and I couldn't make up my mind whether to flutter kick or frog kick.

In the ocean, out in the gulf stream, where it is deep, and that week it was mostly very rough, and I got very seasick on several of the days, we did the actual freediving on a weighted line with a plate at the bottom of it, set at whatever depth each diver requested. We also did rescue practice. In the intermediate class I managed a 20-meter dive (66 feet) which took me 58 seconds. We're supposed to be able to go one meter per second, so I was very slow. But I beat my goal by 6 feet, which surprised and delighted me. On the fourth day of the advanced class I made a 22-meter dive (72 feet) which took me only 45 seconds, so my efficiency was greatly improving, inspiring me to take my instructor's suggestion and attempt 25 meters the next day. That was a very difficult dive. I nearly turned around before reaching the plate, but pushed myself and finally touched the plate, already desperate for air, and made it to the surface. But when I looked at my dive computer, I found that they had actually set the plate at 27.5 meters. (The students in the Safety Supervisor class were operating the line that day!) I had dived to a depth of 90 feet! The dive took me one minute and two seconds, and I was on the verge of panic when I finally surfaced.

But according to my instructors, I was not yet hypoxic (low on oxygen -- that shows as bluish lips). My overwhelming urge to breathe was caused by the CO2 build-up. (Most untrained people will succumb to this at around 30 seconds, as I do also if I do not warm up as we were taught.) But there are exercises to increase CO2 tolerance, and I'll be working on those between now and my next freediving trip. My new goal is a 90-second dive time. I think that's within the realm of the possible. They've told me that with a 4:15 static, I should have a two-minute dive time in me. I don't see that happening.

In Cayman in the spring they're having a week of training followed by a week of competition. I hope to make it there. If I add ten feet to my depth I'll be able to say that I've been deeper on one breath of air than I've been on scuba. How cool would that be! But staying down 90 seconds is more important to me than making it to 100 feet.

Anybody who enjoys freediving should take this class. I was the shallowest diver in the advanced class. All the others were more experienced than I. Some of you might say "I could never do that," but that's only because you have not taken the class. And if you are already a freediver, maybe a spearfisher, you should take their class to become a safer diver. There are about 90 deaths a year among freedivers, and nearly all of those are spearfishers who do not follow a few simple safety rules: always dive in buddy pairs; always one up, one down; and always watch your buddy for 30 seconds after surfacing, since 90% of freediving blackouts occur at the surface after surfacing, and all you need to do is keep the airway out of the water and the diver will recover almost immediately if you "blow, tap, talk,": remove the face mask and blow across the eyes, tap the face gently, and tell the diver "breathe, breathe," in a calm voice. Another 9% of freediving blackouts happen within 15 feet of the surface, where a buddy can easily save the diver if the diver is weighted to be buoyant at 10 or 15 meters.

Lots of freedivers weight themselves to be negatively buoyant at the surface, and examination of the dive computers of drowned divers shows that they made it to the surface, but then blacked out and sank because their buddy was not there, or had not waited half a minute before diving.

There's a YouTube video,

. The "chaser" in the video is Erin Magee, who was the lead instructor in my intermediate class, and an assistant instructor in the advanced class. The "red-suited monkey" being chased is Kirk Krack, the lead instructor in my advanced class. Erin holds the U.S. women's constant ballast record, at 71 meters (233 feet).

In the class, an instructor accompanied every student on every dive. Erin accompanied me on my 90-foot dive, and Kirk videotaped it. In addition, in the advanced class, where students were going deeper (several went to 40 meters, and one made it to 50 meters) safety divers met the diver at 1/3 the target depth, which is competition protocol, since the last 1/3 and above is where 99% of blackouts happen. In competition, where divers go deeper yet, they have safety divers on scuba below where the safety freedivers go.

They began the instructor course immediately after the advanced class, but when that's over they'll be sending out video of the class, and if they permit, I'll post my dive on YouTube and link to it here.

 

That was precisely my point: That what I was sure was impossible happened. So what now seems impossible, who knows?

Back in the days when I wore lapel pins (I quit wearing them because they were ruining all my shirts) my favorite one said:

BE REALISTIC: DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE!

So I still say that for me to dive to 90 feet was impossible. 100 feet is just a little more impossible. And a 90-second dive is a fair bit more impossible yet. I really don't know if I'll try for 100 feet. It's not really that important. But I'm going to give the impossible 90 seconds a try. I've already started working the O2 and CO2 tables.

 

You are absolutely and completely wrong on all counts. There was no deceit and there was no danger whatsoever. The line was being operated by other students, and the person in charge of the line for my dive simply read the markings wrong.

As for danger, there was none whatsoever:

Blackout occurs when the ppO2 (partial pressure of oxygen) drops to one-tenth of an atmosphere. At this point there is plenty of oxygen to keep the body alive and the brain undamaged. The brain merely shuts off consciousness. The first indication is the release of air or a loss of motor control, whimsically known as a "samba," for its resemblance to the dance. Similarly, if the urge to breathe becomes intolerable, the first thing that would happen is a release of air, though I don't know if that ever actually happens underwater, as the diving reflex would probably prevent it. (Swallowing water while panicking at the surface is another matter.)

There is an instructor diving with every student on every dive. During the ascent, the instructor was literally within arms reach of me the whole way. It is a simple matter if a diver blacks out or exhales, for the safety diver (in this case a highly competent instructor) to take hold of the diver's head and close the airways and bring the distressed diver to the surface.

It's true that I went deeper than I'd otherwise have gone, but since I had no idea whether I could reach 25 meters, it's pretty much irrelevant that the plate was deeper than I had requested. And in retrospect, I have no quarrel with the student who inadvertently set it to 27.5. (I joked, saying "you cheated me," but in fact I was quite happy to have made it to the deeper depth.

There are divers (I am not one of these) who say something to the effect of "Fifty meters or blackout!" taking advantage of the extreme safety measures in place to attempt depths that would indeed be risky under other circumstances.

I believe there was one famous freediving competition death not too long ago, and that was at a competition where Kirk Krack's safety protocols were not in place.

There is NO safer place to dive than in a class or competition run by Kirk. The only real danger is ear damage if you are unable to equalize your ears, and that can happen at any depth, so the diver must be sensible enough to stop at the first indication of ear discomfort.

 

BTW, Erin Magee had a blackout during the filming of the video posted above. There were scooter operators towing them down for the takes, and then towing them back up again, and at the end of one take, the scooter operator was having problems with the scooter. It took him too long to reach them, and it was too slow getting to the surface. Kirk climbed up over the operator and swam to the surface, and when he finished his recovery breathing and looked down, the scooter operator had Erin by the head, unconscious, and was bringing her up. When she came to, she denied having blacked out. That is typical. She was unharmed. It's the only time she's ever blacked out.

The scooter operator was able to rescue her because on the scooter he had not been exerting himself, as she had during the shoot, and so had more breath-hold time.

 

Yep. And even had it been intentional on the part of the (student) clutch man, there would have been no issue of safety.

 

Nope. Just busy with other stuff. I greatly enjoyed our meeting. You're welcome back any time.

 

You guys are missing the irony in my post. You think I was unaware of what I was saying, when I said deeper than 60 feet was "impossible" and then I did 90; and then I said again that deeper or longer was "impossible"? Sheesh!

 

Well, that's okay then. And if it makes you feel any better, I was dreadfully seasick for much of the time out on the ocean. (... And yet I would still jump at the chance to go out on a sailboat... I know it's nuts.) Being in the water, riding six-foot rollers up and down as I did my warm-up dives or waited my turn for my target dive, was actually worse than being on the boat, and on two of the days I had to leave the water and return to the boat early. One day they cut the diving short because it was so rough the rig that holds the diving lines was about to break up.

 

Thank you. I gather that Lake Michigan is among the roughest waters there are. Or is that Lake Superior? But if I'm ever in your neck of the woods, I'll look you up.