Tag Archives: free

Aqua Lung Falco Free Diving Mask – Product Review

I finally had the Aqua Lung Falco mask arrive in the mail few days ago and took it out for a spin the next day. This mask is a massive upgrade from my previous mask and feels so nice on the face that sometimes I forget I have a mask on. Im sure this feeling will wear of soon as I get used to the better quality products šŸ˜›

I decided to buy the aqua lung falco mask because many people where discussing how the aqua lung sphera mask (that was also very highly rated and one that I felt was also very comfortable when I tried it at the store) would scratch easily because of the Ā plastic lens. I did some research and found that the Aqua Lung Falco was a similar mask except for the fact that it was tempered glass. I looked at the images to see if I could see any differences but wasn’t able to see it possibly because of the angles in the images (it just didn’t show the mask at that right angle). Many of the stores I went to didn’t stock the Falco and couldn’t tell me much about it.

It made me wonder why people didn’t buy the Falco when it was supposedly the same as the sphera but had tempered glass, which in essence would mitigate the easily scratched plastic so I decided to buy it, it wasn’t much $59 was the purchase cost. I finally got my hands on the Aqua Lung Falco mask and am now able to see the difference. Other then the fact that the lens is glass the way it wraps around the mask is somewhat different. All the materials used and the design of the mask which includes the housing and straps are pretty much identical except for the actual lens surface area (and material). The Aqua lung Falco has a straight lens with added plastic on the edges so it lines up whilst the Aqua Lung Sphera curls all the way around the mask. (The video shows a betterĀ illustrationĀ of this)

Check out the video to see the actual difference. Hopefully if you were ever confused about the differences like I was you can now see the difference in the two masks and it can help you decide whether you would rather have a plastic lens that does have better visibility but is prone to scratching or whether you would rather have the tempered glass lens which doesn’t scratch as easily but doesn’t wrap around the whole mask.

Anyway, check out the video above.

If your convinced that you would rather have the sphera with the plastic lens but has full wrap around then the cheapest I have seen it online is at amazon, though please let me know if you find it anywhere else cheaper and I will put links to those site also.

Click on the image below to be taken to the amazon page if your interested in purchasing the Aqua Lung Sphera.

$39.00 US and ships to Australia for $10.44 (this is where my friend has purchased his sphera and where I have purchased mine as a secondary mask). I think for the US customers this is free shipping.

$49.00 US for the clear aqua color at amazon though im not sure what the shipping price to Australia is because I didn’t purchase this one.

Free Diving – Dynamic Apnea about 60 – 65 meters (no fins, no weights)

So today I decided to keep a record of my dynamic apnea swims that I have been doing over the last couple of weeks. When I swim in the mornings at shelly beach I usually do a few standard swimming laps (free style & breathe stroke) and then do some free diving laps to just improve on my apnea and distance.

I have been doing 33 yards (as the friendly custodian of the pools “The brass monkeys” tell me is the length which in metres is just over 30 metres) pretty easily for about 3 weeks and decided it was time to swim back and do 60 to 65 meters. I wanted to see what my stroke looked like so I asked Damir to spot me and make sure if something bad happens he is there on hand to help as well as be the camera man again.

I managed to do 2 x 60M today. The first attempt I felt was much smoother and much easier but the camera came of the pole when some big waves came over the pool barriers so we missed the whole dive. As a result I had to take another breathe up and attempt to do it again. It was much more difficult today then my first attempt about a week ago because the waves were big and causing a washing machine whirlpool effect making it difficult to swim without getting dragged backwards (you can kind of see the waves breaking on the surface).

I was happy with the effort though and the fact that I managed to do it twice in one session in very choppy and wavy waters is a decent effort for me šŸ™‚ I think looking at how the professionals do it and looking back at my stroke, there needs to be lots of improvement on the leg work, I don’t seem to get that stretch that I see when others do it.

Anyway, the next goal is to fix up the stroke and then attempt to do 3 laps, which would be more or less a 90M dynamic. I would be really happy with that !

Video of attempt posted above.

Free Diving Clovelly – (Sydney Australia)…

Over the last couple of weeks I have been wanting to go to Clovelly to explore the underwater marine life. Clovelly is a great place to dive because its safe but still fun to explore. There are life guards present and the beach is actually enclosed like a massive swimming pool meaning that its not out in the open ocean. For obvious reasons this is a much safer environment.

The great thing about Clovelly is that even though its enclosed there is still very significant depths in different areas of the beach so that it is still fun to free dive and still a challenge. There is some decent marine life including the famous bluey groper and its deep enough so that you can practice various free diving techniques to improve your diving for when you go to deeper and more open waters.

One of the major disadvantages with clovelly is if there has been rain any of the previous days you can forget about visibility. You will get about 2 feet visibility and that is it. As a result this makes anything other then swimming laps unacceptable. However, today was a great day and the visibility was pretty good, not the best but still acceptable.

In the video I posted above, I was able to get clips of the famous big blue gropers, some other colourful fish (which I don’t know the names of yet) and even a wandering scuba diver roaming around by him/her self (ran out of air before I could approach and say “hi !” šŸ™ ). The clip was taken without fins and no camera pole so its pretty jerky and can really be improved in future videos. Hopefully when I get around to buying/making my own camera pole and getting some decent fins, I can improve the quality of the videos.

Anyway, video posted above, hope you enjoy it ! I had a great time making it šŸ™‚

Below are the directions from the main city of sydney to clovelly beach:

sydney-to-gordons-bay