[cdavis]

Hi Maytag,

Lots of questions. Is it legit?, absolutely. But is very different. I'm a newbie to this kind of diving, basicly a go for broke spearo type who did some scuba cave diving a long time ago and decided I was the wrong kind of diver for caves. Freediving them is different from scuba, requires less anal concentration on detail, but still, to me, needs a much more careful approach than open water diving.

The site you refer to is the best I've found. There are several more. Jeff''s site is quite good, especially for freedivers. Sorry, I've lost the reference. Go way back through this thread and you can find it. Freediving a spring is a case by case thing. Lots of places have no rules at all.

I've contacted a few cave divers, but can't get much feedback(haven't tried real hard). The organizations have no position that I know of. I get the feeling that there has been so much trouble with scuba divers getting killed in Florida caves that they have gotten very rigid on this subject(understandable) and can't realy concieve of what freediving involves.

The techniques I use are pretty much like open water. Silt isn't an issue. If it was, I won't go there. A problem I've been having is hanging up my heels while falling through narrow passages, totally stops you momentum. Haven't quite figured out how to fix that one. One trick is turn your light off when you turn around in a passage that has gotten beyond the point where it is well lit. Turns out that the light from your torch can sometimes drown out the distant light of the cave entrance. It can be pretty disconcerting to turn around and see no light. That's a Jeff trick and also goes back to his main rule, inch by inch, and get extremely familiar with the cave your diving in. I agree that's the most important rule of all. Its also real easy for the over-eager or impatient(like me) to bend that rule to the point of trouble.

How'd I get into this oddball type of diving? Met Jeff through DB, then Scott and lots of others. A great group, who make the diving that much better.

Connor