FIT and Spearfishing, what a trip..... PART 1

Safety is always at the top of my list with diving in general. When I started "freediving" I knew I had to learn the right way. I really consider most of what I do in fresh water to be snorkeling, since I'm rarely below 10' and the dangers were minimal. But I wanted to go deeper.

Many years ago I saw a program on TV. This guy wants to set a world record freediving on this sled contraption. He needed safety divers, so he went to a scuba club, but they did not jump at the chance with this "reckless" sport. So the guy said, let’s go to your favorite wreck in about 100' of water. The SCUBA guys agreed and went down to 110' on a wreck. They could spend 10 minutes at that depth. Next thing they new, this guy was swimming around them with nothing but a mask and a swimsuit and stayed with them for a minute, then surfaced.

I was hooked; I wanted to be able to do that. Time gets away from you, ya know... But on the show the guy went on to do the sled dive and set a record. The lift bag burst at 66' on his way back up, but he swam to the surface.

So I got long fins last year, but my breath holds are still not great and I'm reading about SWB. I need to get training, so late last year I decide I'm taking a class. I looked at PFI in Hawaii, I looked at FIT. I posted on DeeperBlue and said I'm going. Scott Otey stepped up to go as well. We signed up 5 or 6 months before the class. What a grueling wait.

Finally the day comes, April 1st. It's time to drive to Florida. Scott calls me as I'm leaving work and says he is waiting at my house. He took some out of the way route that made the 3.5 hour trip take 5 hours. This was good, because the timing was great. We load up my truck and head off to Do Dive in to pick up some 1lb weights and we are off!

Our first stop was Sarasota, to stay with my parents for 2 nights and hopefully find some water to get in. We drove straight through the night, stopping for gas and bathroom breaks, and a little cup of O.J. at the Florida welcome station. We stopped in Lutz Florida to see Ray Odor and pick up a couple of Pole Spears. I was excited to get to meet Ray based on his bio on his site (www.spearfishing.cc). He's 80 years old and has been diving almost twice as long as I've been alive! But Ray was not around, he went fishing, FISHING! What a stab in the heart! Well, can't blame him. So we picked up our pole spears and went on to my parents.

The next morning we wanted to do some spearing. My pole spear was missing a shaft with flopper, so we went back up to see Ray. We sat down with Ray for about 45 minutes talking about diving, spearing, lobsters and other stuff. He is a great guy. Then he showed us his factory. A couple sheds in his backyard. It was pretty cool, all the stuff he makes and sells. All sorts of steel rods laying around in different phases of production.

Ray gave us some ideas on where to go try and find some fish from a shore dive. We went near the Skyway Bridge to some rock piles. Scott and I ended up in the water for 7 hours. Scott got a nice Sheepshead and we found a Grouper hole, but could not manage to bring him out.

Friday we headed down to Ft Lauderdale. Scott and I wanted to get to to some shops that carried spearfishing and freediving gear just to get a good look at some products we had not seen in person. We went to two great shops, Scuba's World (http://www.scubasworld.com/) and Florida Freedivers (http://www.floridafreedivers.net/). The people at both shops were top notch and very helpful.

Saturday morning, this is what we came for, Martin Stepanek's F.I.T. Level II course. We arrived and once everyone was there we jumped right into the paperwork. Then it was into the good stuff, the breathing, physics and physiology behind breath hold diving. Following the classroom session it was off to the pool to work on some water skills, safety and put some of the stuff we learned to practical use. Another trip back to the class, then back to the pool to work on the static breath holds. It was amazing, I had never held my breath for more than a 1:15 and already in the practice session I did three minutes. It seemed unreal.