In general, our customers are about the nicest people you could imagine. They are well-educated, considerate and highly disciplined. They don’t tend to make a lot of noise, leave trash strewn about or cause other problems. Working with them is one of the chief reasons our staff likes their jobs so much. In other words, our customers are very different from most of the general public.
There are exceptions, however. And while we don’t encounter them frequently, when we do it can create a lasting impression. One such encounter took place recently. It was something we can all learn from.
It begins
It started shortly before 9:00 am on a Saturday morning. A guy walks in the door, steps up to the counter and asks how much admission is. As he appears to be by himself, we ask the obvious question: Do you have a buddy?
His response surprised us. He said, “I’m not scuba diving. I’m freediving.” At this point, our mental alarm bells began sounding. Yours should have as well.
Freediving is different
Freediving differs from scuba diving in several important ways. Among them, freediver training places even greater emphasis on teamwork than scuba training does. Why is this?
- The single greatest risk in freediving is blackout. This occurs when the partial pressure of oxygen (PO2) in blood and tissues drops below the level needed to sustain consciousness.
- Inspired air contains 21 percent oxygen. This means that, at the beginning of a freedive, a diver’s PO2 will be at or close to 0.21 ATA.
- Assuming the diver descends immediately to a depth of two atmospheres (10 m/33 ft), the rise in ambient pressure will increase the diver’s PO2 to nearly twice this, or 0.42 ATA.
- As the freediver remains at depth, his body consumes oxygen and his PO2 levels drop. There is no way for a diver to know how much his PO2 has dropped. This is because the desire to breathe is a result of increases in CO2 levels and not the drop in oxygen levels.
- Now let’s say the freediver remains at depth too long, and his PO2 drops to 0.16 ATA. Although less than the level found in atmospheric air, it is nevertheless enough to maintain consciousness.
- Now the diver ascends. As he does, ambient pressure drops and, with it, PO2 levels. At a depth of 1.5 atmospheres (5 m/16 ft), what was a PO2 of 0.16 ATA at depth is now 0.12 ATA. If the diver hasn’t passed out already, he will at this point. This is called shallow water blackout.
In the words of Billy Mays, “But wait! There’s more…”
Most scuba divers have at least heard of shallow water blackout. What you may find surprising is that this is not the only place blackout can occur. According to Performance Freediving International (PFI), the risk of blacking out at the surface within 60 seconds of getting there is even greater. This is because PO2 levels may continue to drop faster than the diver can recover by breathing.
Now you might be thinking, “Okay, the diver is back at the surface. So even if he blacks out, he won’t drown.” Not quite.
- Even if the diver is weighted for slight positive buoyancy at the surface (as freedivers do), his mouth may not be out of the water.
- The unconscious diver may also flop face-down rather than face-up.
The bottom line is that, whether at the surface or underwater, an unconscious freediver is at serious risk of drowning.
Safety divers are essential
What scuba divers call a buddy, freedivers are just as likely to refer to as a safety diver. Their role in freediving is essential.
- A considerable portion of freediver training is devoted to how to be an effective safety diver. Much more than entry-level scuba courses spend on diver rescue.
- Unlike scuba, safety divers don’t accompany their partners underwater. Instead, they monitor their partners from the surface. This way, should a diver run into difficulty underwater, the safety diver will be able to respond with a full breath, maximizing the time he can spend underwater responding to the problem.
- During training, safety divers learn how to deal with blacked-out divers both at the surface and underwater. They learn the importance of closely monitoring a freediver for at least one full minute after the diver surfaces.
- It’s important that safety divers are able to maintain eyes-on contact with the person they are monitoring for the entire duration of the dive. This way they will not waste time hunting for a missing freediver who does not surface in a timely manner.
This last point underscores why freediving into overhead environments is just plain dumb. Once you disappear into an overhead environment, your safety diver has no way of knowing whether you went left, went right or continued straight ahead. It deprives your safety diver of the ability to reach you quickly when seconds count.
The bottom line
At this point, it should be abundantly clear that solo freediving is among the most patently stupid things anyone can do. In other words, a perfect activity for someone with a serious death wish. Unfortunately, there is another thing that sets freediving apart from scuba diving.
- When scuba diving, you are supposed to be able to provide proof of training and certification to buy life-support equipment, fill tanks and sign up for dive trips.
- In freediving, there is nothing preventing an untrained person from going online and buying long fins, camouflaged wetsuits, spearguns and other freediving paraphernalia. It’s these would-be “freedivers” who so often get into trouble.
When you see someone freediving by themselves — even if they appear to be wearing “all the right stuff” — odds are they lack proper training. But you won’t see them at Blue Grotto. Not if we can help it.
Back to our story
You can imagine the looks on our faces when the would-be freediver announced his intention to go it alone. Seeing this, he immediately responded by saying, “I have my freediver certification.” (As if this would make it okay.)
“Who was your instructor and what agency issued your freediver card?” we asked. He told us. It was among the better-known of the independent freediver training organizations.
“Did your instructor teach you it was okay to freedive by yourself?” (A question to which we already knew the answer, as no reputable agency we’re aware of teaches that it’s okay to freedive solo.)
Knowing better than to answer that question directly, his next response was to say, “I’ll take full responsibility for myself…”
Seriously…?
Imagine for a second that we’d actually allowed this guy to freedive by himself, based solely on his verbal promise to take full responsibility for whatever befell him. A week after his inevitable demise, his bereaved mother appears at our doorstep accompanied by her attorney. They announce their intention to sue us for everything we have.
“Wait!” we reply. “You don’t understand. Your son verbally agreed to take full responsibility for his actions.”
At this point, the pair’s demeanor changes entirely. “We’re sorry,” they say. “We didn’t know. We are sorry to have bothered you.” And they leave.
Now if you think for a second that a scenario like that has any chance of happening, we have some wonderful waterfront property for sale in the Everglades we know you’ll love. Breathtaking views. Plenty of snakes and gators.
The rules to the rescue
In the end, we were able to send the would-be solo freediver on his way by explaining that:
- We don’t allow snorkelers on weekends unless they are part of a larger group that includes scuba divers. This is because of the sheer volume of scuba students in the water on weekends.
- We also don’t allow freedivers at any time unless they are under the direct supervision of a certified and insured freediving instructor. This, too, can only take place on weekdays.
The Grotto is a popular training site for freediving instructors conducting the initial phases of freediver training. This is because the open-water basin offers depths to 10 m/33 ft with direct access to the surface. Past this, there is not a lot for freedivers to do.
By the way, we define snorkeling as:
- You stay at the surface.
- You breathe continuously from your mouth or snorkel.
- Your head never goes underwater.
Any form of breath-hold diving, no matter how deep or how shallow, we define as freediving. If you stay down too long, you can blackout as easily in shallow water as in deep.
So why no unsupervised freediving?
If you have been scuba diving in the Grotto, you understand the allure of the cavern. It’s hard for any normal person to not want to enter, even if it is to go in “just a little bit.”
If you are on scuba, being in the upper cavern is no problem, as it falls within what the NSS-CDS calls the no-lights zone. This means that, whether you have a light or not, there is nowhere in the upper cavern that you cannot see the entrance clearly during daylight hours.
So let’s say you are a responsible freediver. You elect to go no further than the small platform at 10 m/33 ft. At this point, it may seem as though you are still in open water, but you are actually not. And your safety diver, who is waiting patiently for you at the surface, may not be able to see you.
Now let’s say you are a more normal human being — one who cannot resist the temptation to go just a bit further. In your mind, you are convinced you are still in the immediate vicinity of the entrance. Meanwhile, your partner is waiting for you at the surface, counting seconds and wondering, “If I have to go look for this guy, do I go left, go right or straight ahead?”
As we mentioned earlier, having to hunt for a missing freediver who didn’t surface in a timely manner can cause the safety diver to waste valuable seconds he doesn’t have. And this is why we don’t allow freedivers unless under instructor supervision.
Looking back
The only thing we regret about this incident is that we didn’t get this guy’s name and that of his freediving instructor. That way we could have called the instructor and asked, “Did you teach so-and-so that it is okay to freedive solo?”
We can imagine what the instructor’s response would have been. We can envision him getting his former student on the phone and reading him the Riot Act. He’d probably demand that the guy turn in his Freediver card before Darwinian evolution took another step further. Fitting, don’t you think?