Category Archives: Free Diving

This category contains all my free diving adventures in the form of videos and pictures. Whenever I get a chance to go diving and do some recording the videos will end up here. I will also add descriptions and things I learnt at the dive site.

My Free Diving kit upgrade

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IMG_0337Winter is coming and its getting colder here in sydney. Along side that, I plan to travel a bit this year so I wanted to make sure that no matter the conditions I would have sufficient gear to go diving. Made a few purchases, some that I am happy about and some that I might have to change, its fine though as the item I want to replace (the snorkel) isn’t to expensive.

I bought an Adrenaline wetsuit, not the top of the range by any means but its 3MM, fits very nicely and keeps me warm. Im already pretty tolerant to the cold because of my morning swims but this just gives me that added comfort and protects me from silly things like jelly fish and other such nasties in the water. I have used it many times since I bought it and very pleased with the fit, the comfort and the price. I know sometime in future I might get an upgrade but it wont be for a long time.

I bought a Cressi dry snorkel. The snorkel is great and I purposely sought out a dry snorkel because of the experience I had when I used to do basic snorkelling before. As opposed to my old snorkel now I can take nice mouthfuls of air at breathe up and when there are waves I don’t get water coming into the top, I have always enjoyed the dry snorkel.

Initially, I used to wonder why free divers used the basic flexible snorkels but only after taking this snorkel for a spin in the freediving scenario, I now understand. The previous snorkel I had was crappy but it was very small and thin length wise, so when I was moving around in the water I couldn’t feel it, this new snorkel however is longer and bigger. When I finish my breathe up, take the snorkel out of my mouth and start diving, I can feel the drag of the snorkel on the side of my head. Its not really that bad but it is annoying and different to how I used to feel before when there was almost no drag. I can imagine that with any other flexible basic snorkel it would be much more streamlined so I might make another purchase sometime in future.

The final upgrade I bought was a pair of fins. I was contemplating different kinds of fins and I had a few in mind that I had tried and wanted to buy. I was waiting for a discount either on amazon or some other site and by chance found the Cressi Gara Modular fins at a massive discount here in Australia. It meant, quick delivery, easy return if any problems and these were one of the fins that I had in mind, though I thought I wouldn’t end up purchasing them because of the price.  However with the massive discount they fell right into my price range and I bought them right away. When you are used to using basic crappy fins or going bare foot, it takes some getting used to because of the fin’s length and hard blade material, but once you have the flow going these fins really propel you through the water nicely. Very happy with the purchase and now instead of burning energy and oxygen on moving my hands and my feet I have a chance to look around and spend more time in the water by kicking nice and smoothly whilst taking snaps and videos underwater. The fins are slightly big for my feet but using my vibrams they fit just right 🙂

Now that I have all the equipment that I need (bar my camera which I need to upgrade) im ready to go diving anytime anywhere ! The plan is to go to bali this year and dive the ship wreck at Tumbulen and if time permits past by Egypt and do the different sites there.

Free Diving Cronulla – (Oak Park – Shelly Beach)

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Finally … It’s been over two weeks and the weather in sydney has been good enough that it has provided decent conditions for some free diving on the south side beaches, in this case (Oak park and Shelly beach).

We spent the whole day diving on sunday starting at 8:30 in the morning all the way to 4.00 in the evening. I tried to get there early enough to take shots of the sunrise but woke up way to late so instead of rushing decided to just relax and arrive at a decent time instead of  trying to see if i could make it at the break of dawn risking double demerit points seeing as this was (kind of) a long weekend.

The beach was full of swimmers, divers and surfers and many of the people that arrive in the morning around the same time I did were still there until sun down ! I think everyone knows that this kind of weather wont be common again for a few more months specially as we are heading straight for winter here in Sydney so they wanted to make the best of the day.

Free diving at oak park was pretty nice today, swell was pretty low throughout the day, lots of scuba divers coming in and out and the visibility was decent. The only problem is the water is getting extremely cold and as a result we had to get out of the water every 30 minutes or so as Damir was starting to get cold. I was using a shirt that kept me warm so I didn’t really feel the cold. Will probably be buying a wet suit sometime this coming month so that should be even better in keeping me warm during winter dives.

For lunch we had soup, yeah …. Damir brought the pressure cooker from his house, that he used to cook the soup to the beach and we used a ladle to put the soup into Styrofoam cups so we could eat. People were looking at the two weird guys eating soup out of a pressure cooker on the beach but who cares, the soup was delicious and the perfect pickup during lunch before more diving after midday.

Didn’t get to take much pictures just the one video displayed above. 🙂

Aqua Lung Falco Free Diving Mask – Product Review

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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 😛

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  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 better illustration 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.

My Current Free Diving Kit

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freediving-kit

Im looking at some new gear to buy sometime in the future and was just reviewing what I currently have. It’s nice to look at what I have bought, how much I have spent and to know for such little money and a bit of training I have been able to enjoy the ocean like I have never ever been able to before 🙂

I think the most important piece of equipment is to be safe and officially get the SSI or AIDA certifications which I plan to do soon. Only issue right now is im still deciding where to do it as I might have to reside overseas for a while and it may actually be a requirement that I get the training outside of  Australia. Currently my business might take me to Indonesia for a few months 2-3 (possibly) so if this is the case I have seen some really good places where I can go for 3-4 day certification training including accommodation in Bali that seems to come highly recommended. In the next few weeks I will know where i’ll be and if its Indonesia im gonna call the guys up in bali 🙂

As a result of not yet getting the full training and not yet having fins I kept my depth to something fun and challenging  but not going past it (about 15m max) and always wait for scuba guys or other divers to start populating an area before I start diving after my first mishap with the blue bottles some weeks ago. Reason being is, im sure the professional diving instructors can tell the conditions so I just chat with them before hand and follow them into the water.

With that aside I do have some equipment that I use to keep it fun, most of it is pretty crappy except for my new Falco mask which I really like. So currently my kit includes the following:

aqualung-falco-maskAqua Lung Falco mask. I got it a few days ago and going from my previous non free diving mask by TUSA, this mask makes it feel like im not even wearing a mask anymore. Its really comfortable and compresses nicely to the face. Previously the TUSA mask that I had would hurt around the face when I went deeper and after a days diving would leave marks that would last for a few hours. Just to be clear though, there is actually nothing wrong with the TUSA mask that I had previously, the visibility is great, its just not a low volume free diving mask that compresses nicely to the face.

Speedo snorkel :P. Yeah its a cheapo snorkel that I got when I bought those mask and snorkel kitsnorkel-and-camera may years ago. It gets water inside, purging requires me to blow really hard, the tube is really thin and make sit hard to get the air I want but hey, for now it does the job and lets me have fun. Out of all the equipment I have this will be the first to go and im testing out a few snorkels now. I found a few that I like and they can be bought on Amazon but for some reason those sellers overseas do not ship to Australia. The equivalent products can be found on Australia scuba sites and in the stores but are just 2-3 times more expensive in some cases (even including the shipping from overseas scuba sites) so I will hold out and wait a bit longer to see if I can find a better deal here in oz. If not I will just bite the bullet and buy it at the prices quoted here.

Intova camera. It’s the cheapest I could find on the market that had a decent depth resistance of 60M. Again I didn’t want to buy the best equipment without knowing what I was doing and this camera only cost me $160 and up to now its done a decent job. Now that I know more about the equipment I need, I somewhat regret that I just didn’t buy the GoPro for between $240 – $350. It’s ok though as I can use this as a secondary camera or something that I mount to my mask/head where the new camera I buy can be used to take long view 3rd person shots from the top or bottom.

camera-poleCamera Pole. I saw a few cool videos on youtube of people taking the camera down with them but using a pole instead of just holding the camera. It created really good videos of both the surroundings and the diver and I thought it was a good and easy way to make some good videos. My pole is pretty make shift though, I use a camera bike mount and attached it to an electrical wiring conduit that you see up against the walls. The pole is probably just over a meter long and pretty sturdy. I tested a few materials and found that this particular one floats, so if the camera ever fell out of my hands I know that the camera would float to the top instead of end up on the sea bed. The mounts cost me $6 and the pole cost me $5 so all up its $11 which I am pretty happy with.

vibrams-pantsVibrams. These were never intended for diving, I used them for jogging and walking about but I use them for diving because they work well in the water and are pretty sturdy. I mainly use them because in most of the dive sites you have to walk on lots of rocks and coral to get into the water. I know that people do lots of safe dives and end up cutting their feet and legs due to a wave washing them about just as they are about to exit so I thought to keep my feet safe and ensure that I dont get gashes on the soles of my feet wearing the vibrams would be a good idea. Also sometimes I end up doing some sea walking and you never know what is down there so covering up the feet is a good idea for this reason also. Soon however I will need to get some fins, need to do some research and see which are the best for me.

Nylon reebok pants. Yep my nylon reebok pants, im pretty sure they are fakes because I bought them for the equivalent of $5 but they work just fine. They dry up quickly are very thin and very comfortable to wear all day 🙂 Though when the weather gets colder I will certainly need to replace these with a proper wet suite.

Toothpaste 😛 The cheapest and easiest way to keep the mask from fogging up. Works great, when I realised you could use toothpaste it made my diving experience 100 times better because I wasn’t fogging up anymore (probably the most important thing in my kit other then the mask and snorkel :P)

Over the next few months I think I will be purchasing upgrades as i definitely need them. I will start with snorkels, followed by fins and/or wet suite and probably a new camera. Its coming towards winter here in Australia and the waters might start to get colder so if it does a wet suite might end up becoming the highest priority.

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

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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 🙂 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 Oak Park – (Sydney Australia) – Near Cronulla

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So today we went free diving at Oak park which is a small beach just east of the famous cronulla beach in sydney’s south coast. On saturday we were not sure if we were going to go diving at all because it had been raining all week and the dark clouds were still looming. We were ready to just go to one of the safe little rock pools and do some free diving drills but opening the windows today, it was a pleasant surprise to see the sun shining and hardly any clouds unless you looked really far into the horizon towards the south.

Oak Park Dive SiteDamir and I decided that today’s dive site was going to be one of 3 places we had been eyeing for a while. It was going to be either North Bondi Rocks, Gordon’s bay or way down south @ Oak Park. It was getting somewhat late (about 10am) so we decided North Bondi was going to be hard on the parking and we had done Gordon’s enough for the last couple of weeks. Also if it started to rain we wanted easy access to rock pools so we went with Oak park which is about 1km away from Cronulla and about 500 meters from Shelly beach (which has some really nice and safe rock pools).

The Dive at Oak Park was a new to us because most of the places we had gone to was within a closed bay. Oak park seemed more like the open ocean and was full of motor boats so we both kept our hands on the dive buoy and I was always keeping an eye on what was below the surface incase there were jelly fish or any other undesirables swimming close to us. Damir kept his head above water to ensure no boats zoomed by. I knew that if we had paddled out a few hundred meters and there were problems such as getting stung by blue bottles or getting caught in current it would not be an easy swim because we had no fins, so for this first dive we kept a safe but still decently far distance from the shore.

Entry was pretty easy in high tide, we just slowly put our buoy into the water on the left side of the rock pool and simply paddled out. Once we got out to the middle of the Oak park diving site the bottom was much more different then any of the previous sites I had gone to. There where lot of over hangs, lots of rocks and crevices, lots of different marine life and it was just more fun and interesting to dive.

As a result of this being our first time here, I wanted to get a feel for the underwater current and the sea life, along with what kind of obstacles were below so we pretty much stayed in 8-12 metre waters just to get a feel for the Oak Park dive site (Maybe next week we will try to conquer the 20 metre areas) . The Oak Park dive site was really fun and we met some friendly scuba divers so it was a great day with lots of others enjoying the Oak Park site. The over hangs were nice to see and there were many interesting fish swimming below them. When I get a chance to come to the site again I plan to dive in between the  crevices and the over hangs.

I also finally got a chance to try out my camera pole. By looking at the videos I think my pole was to short, currently its about 60cm but I think it should be at least 1 – 1.2 meters so I can get better videos. We also managed to learn how to take better shots without moving and jerking the camera around to much so we are learning lots of different things on each and every dive 🙂

Other then that, it was a great fun day, no major mishaps, just a small cut on Damir’s knee as he was getting out of the Oak Park dive site (slipped on the rocks upon exit because it was low tide).

Images & videos above & below are directions from main city of sydney to the oak park dive site:

sydney-to-oak-park

Seawalking but Freediving Style !

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The idea this week was to get my new gear, Aqualung Falco mask, camera pole, pivots and straps but due to some delay in the mail as a result of easter just around the corner I didn’t get my gear prior to the sunday that I usually go diving. So as a result, the initial plan to give the new diving pole and mask a test run didn’t happen.

No matter, I went back to Gordon’s bay but this time decided to try a few different things under the water that I can’t normally do on land 😛 One of the things I always wanted to try was to do those really cool acrobatics that you see at the circus. So I tried to do some summersaults  on the way up, man it felt great, spinning and twirling around in the ocean, weightless and free 🙂

Whenever I do something new I always do it in shallower waters and always time my dives to gauge my air levels and closeness to feeling light headed. Doing these different activities like spinning around, holding up a stone and walking around felt pretty comfortable towards the 1 minute 20 mark and I felt that I have enough air to go for longer so i’ll do it in deeper waters and try to do more circus type maneuvers (so fun !).

A few weeks ago I also saw this clip about nomads that live on the water called the Baju people (living between the Philippines & Indonesian islands) and saw this amazing underwater hunter who can walk on the bottom of the ocean and stalk his prey like hunters in various tribes around the world do but only on land. It was amazing, so I wanted to see what it felt like to walk on the seabed. The problem with my situation is I am positively buoyant (unlike the underwater Baju hunter). I also haven’t done the AIDA or SSI courses so I don’t know and wont attempt to strap weights onto myself until I know how to do it properly (I have read about it extensively but its not good enough :P).

So to mitigate this issue I snorkel to an open area where I can see some rocks below and just hold onto the rock while i walk around keeping me firmly grounded. Then when I want to get some air, I just drop the rock and float up nicely, quickly and easily. It’s an amazing feeling to just stroll around the bottom of the ocean, makes me wonder if the feeling I have bouncing around with near weightlessness is the same as how Niel Armstrong & buzz Aldrin felt when they first stepped out of their craft and began bouncing around on the moon’s surface ? (I know that they use underwater simulators to train astronauts so it might actually be the same, if it is how cool is that :P) .

Anyway the feeling was amazing and I will definitely try to do it again next week, video above 🙂 Again sorry for the jerkiness

Free diving Gordon’s Bay – (Sydney Australia) – 3rd Person View

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SunriseSo yesterday we went to check out Gordon’s bay to do some free diving. We arrived right at the crack of day when the sun was just about to rise. It was a beautiful scene. The feeling you get when you see this kind of morning is one where you want to spread out your arms breathe in all the air you can get, smell the ocean, savour it and just slowly let out the air. The weather was warm, there wasn’t much wind and it seemed we where the first ones there.

We unloaded the make shift buoy and took out all our gear. We found a nice rock andDCIM100MEDIA placed all our equipment there claiming it to be ours for the day. Damir took out his phone and started taking snaps of the beautiful scenery, then proceeded to SMS people and get them jealous by showing them the pictures 🙂

The waves were pretty strong as we started to go down the dive ramp but we managed to get down without slipping or hurting ourselves, we then started to make our way to the middle of the ocean when we were struck with blue bottles …. dozens of them all around us with long tentacles. We didn’t notice them until Damir started screaming “Sh*t blue bottles and the thing just stung me … F*rk”. So here we where in the middle of the bay surrounded by blue bottles at the crack of dawn. Then a few seconds later I got stung on the leg, chin and shoulders. It went from a great morning to an absolute disaster.

DCIM100MEDIAWe swam back into shore and went to the coast guard to ask what we should do. The coast guard was still closed because we were there so early so we spoke to a few people and googled what the remedies were and the best suggestion was to use warm water. We couldn’t get warm water from the shops because they were all still closed but what I did have was a nice bottle of water that had been standing in the sun for a very long time so it seemed to be warm enough. I washed my leg, shoulders and chin with the water an Damir also did the same with his arm.

After a few minutes the pain went away and my leg automatically started healing (now the marks from the blue bottle jellyfish is no longer visible about a day later). Damir still has a line on his arm from where the tentacles were but its getting very faint and should heal in a few days.

We decided to go to Clovelly instead as there didn’t seem to be any blue bottles there. We had a few good dives, relaxed on the buoy and took some videos. On the way back to the car we saw that NOW Gordon’s bay was full of people, there were scuba divers, snorkelers swimmers and sunbathers. It seemed like the blue bottle issue was now no longer a problem so we went back to Gordon’s bay.

DCIM100MEDIAWe walked down the ramp and paddled out into the middle of the bay and Free Dove the main wall and followed a pack of scuba divers who were doing some training and marine sight seeing. It felt good to see scuba divers around because if any problems arose there would be much help around. We followed them around the trail and checked out much of the ocean life, even saw a sting ray ! 🙂

What started out as an awesome day, then turned into a bad day ended up as a great day with lots of learning experiences. I learnt that if there are lots of seagulls in the water its a sign that there are lots of jelly fish (don’t know if its true but will look it up), learnt that its a good idea to bring a thermo with hot water so that if jelly fish attacks again, we can mix it with some cold water and wash away the poison and last but not least, its probably a good idea to bring a first aid kit in the bag for cuts and bruises.

All in all it was a great day and next week hoping to get Gordon’s bay in the first person and also take lots of wild life shots. The 3rd person free diving video is above, hope you enjoy.

Below are the directions to gordon’s bay from the main city of sydney:

sydney-to-gordons-bay

Homemade Diving Buoy

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So I finally got around to getting a diving buoy so we can move into deeper waters and let boats know that we are there along with being able to rest and do some breathe up’s in between the dives.

I was torn between buying an official diving buoy or creating a make shift one but after some consideration (for now) my self and damir have decided on just creating a makeshift one.

dive_buoy_equipmentWe purchased a second hand truck tube from the kind folk at “tyres for less” for $10 which I think was a great find since it was cheap and also impossible to find anywhere else as now tyres are generally tubeless. I also purchased some rope from Bunnings (30m) for $3.99 (it on special so I bought 2) and a lead weight to let the rope sink. I think to complete the make shift buoy we need to paint the tyre bright orange and also purchase a rope roller so we can roll the rope down without leaving any slack or having to go through the hassle of rolling it whilst in the water but for now this will do just fine. The idea is to take it for a spin tomorrow at Gordon’s Bay.

Hopefully it works as expected 🙂

Free Diving Clovelly – (Sydney Australia)…

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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 !” 🙁 ). 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 🙂

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

sydney-to-gordons-bay