It is with deep sorrow that we have just heard about the loss of a friend, Carson Bilsland in the Algerian hostage debacle.

Carson who we knew at first as a freedive student, became an avid freediver and competitor attending our first competition in Cabo San Lucas and several times visitor to our camp in Punta Coyote was a true Gentleman and sportsman.

He became a very dear and valued friend. A man of shinning courage and a gentleness and kindness that extended to our then little 8 year old son to whom he told magical stories and sent childrens books.

Carson was funny and wild and loved by our family, he will be sorely missed I can only with humility offer our heartfelt condolences to his family.

This is a subject that has fascinated me ever since I began to have some understanding of the physiological similarities and differences we share with the diving mammals, particularly the Elephant seals. The latest information on their diving behaviour seems to suggest that they are capable of descents close to the depths achieved by the great diving whales.

The Elephant seal has 1 outstanding difference with us –a much higher proportion of myoglobin versus hemoglobin. We have a large proportion of hemoglobin and a comparatively small proportion of myoglobin. The Elephant seal has Continued…

Erika did pioneering work on spleen reaction in elite freedivers. She carried out ultra sound tests on nearly all the competitors in the international competition in Sharm in 2008. The spleen is a huge reserve of red corpuscles and her experiments demonstrated that after a series of 3 breath holds the spleen started to contract and release its reserve into the blood. This came to be called the “spleen advantage” and changed our understanding of the importance of warm ups before a maximum attempt.

In the 4 intervening years we began to ask the question if this reaction could be trained to react sooner. This was particularly important for CNF divers, who favour thinner suits in order not to incur the penalty of wearing any avoidable weight. Thinner suits and lighter weights have one problem – the athlete can get shivering cold if he has to spend time on a long warm up program and this can severely affect his performance. Today a lot of the top CNF divers and even CWT divers do no warm ups. Their first dive is the maximum dive, without any warm ups!

Erika was aware of this trend and even suggested that visualising the dive, by trained freedivers could instigate the reflex. It was great to hear what I believed possible was a belief shared by the authority on the subject.

In the next posts we will publish conversations from last week with Erika Schagatay, one of the worlds leading physiologists on Freediving.

It was a great pleasure to meet Erika again, the last time we met was at the International Freedive Competition in Sharem in 2008. We met her at the border and kidnapped her and took her to a restaurant where we had a long awaited chance to pick her brains.

I had come across an article more than a year ago on Herbert Nitch’s experiences in diving with the skandalopetra, culminating with his 107 mt world record. So I was pre-warned about some of the main challenges. The first was the cold, only a speedo was permitted for this discipline, there were thermoclines to deal with, and sudden cooooold!

I learned that breathe up was done on the surface in either a sitting, kneeling or standing position. This was the easy part, then one bends forward and dives into the water. My anxiety, at first, was would my noseclip come off in the plunge through the surface. This didn’t happen, but in my first dive I dropped the stone on entry, luckly my handler (kolauzeris) detected this, stopped it’s descent so I grabbed it again and continued my descent.

When one reaches the preselected depth Continued…

 Before I begin this tale of our discovery of Skandalopetra and our understanding of the techniques required, just a brief word about our mentor Nikolas Trikilis, the Guru of Skandanopetra. Nikolas is one of those people who with great ease gets on with everybody, a person of considerable charm. If he was a politician it would stop there, but in his case it is far from stopping there, he is a person of enormous patience, an ability to emphatise that goes far beyond the definition of a great comunicator. He helped us before our arrival and had the patience to listen to and answer all my questions at even inappropriate times.

We learned exactly how hard a life this was for the Continued…

It was in 1992-3 that that I read Jacques Mayol’s book “Homo Delphinus”, it had just come out in French. In it was the story of a Greek Sponge diver called Haggi Statti (Hazzi Stathi), who had recovered the anchor of the Santa Margarita. The story is one of the great stories of freediving.

The Italian light Cruiser Santa Margarita (Regina Margherita) was paying a courtesy visit to Greece and managed to lose its anchor in the bay of Pigadia in the island of Karpathos. There were no available hard hat divers and the depth was extreme more than 70 mts. Eventually someone informed the Italians that there was a local sponge diver who regularly dived breath hold to those depths. At first they were skeptical, but Continued…

  It has to stop NOW ! this obscene slaughter of Pilot Whales in the Faroes. There are endless stories of pilots guiding mariners to safety. These are miraculous creatures about whom too little is known. These are creatures of great intelligence. What are the reasons for this disgusting spectacle? These are sub human sadists conducting this stupid massacre. Danes are you proud of your countrymen ? Is this what you are ? Eli Weisel a holocaust survivor said he could understand the sadists in the camps but never the blank silent stares of those that watched the trains go by . Where are your voices?

Where are the voices of the Danish freedivers who pretend to love the sea and its creatures ? Are you all so busy selling leashes and books ? Or do you not want the responsibility of standing up and saying what needs to be said and maybe becoming unpopular in certain circles . Perhaps take an example from Continued…

Concerning the by now famous tatoo of the french swimmer Fabien Gilot (I am nothing without them) If this was indeed a tribute to the Israeli victims of the Munich massacre of 1972 . This , like the Italian team’s minute of silence outside the Israeli team quarters was an act of extreme nobility in the most profound spiirit of the Olympics . In ancient Greece, Olympia and the games were a sacred place of peace . This was the first principle of the Olympics ,that the city states of Greece very often involved in vicious civil wars could come together in peace and regardless of differences,their athletes could look each other in the eye and recognise for a brief moment a common humanity and a cause and a principle greater than their differences, and if everything else is corrupted this should be remembered, it is symbolised in the Olympic flame and the honour given to the Greek athletes to lead the parade of athletes . Thus the athletes of Italy and France earn my profound respect and gratitude that they have up held this tradition .

We have just finished our 2nd Instructors Course. Aharon was the instructor Trainer and Alina helped with all the photography and administration and translation plus her own perspective. The students were Manuel Gonzalez from Mexico known to his friends as Manolo, Eden Detooker and Yuval Ohev.

Manolo had been coached by Aharon in Mexico to take all the Mexican National Records, he has a superb style in No Fins and is a leading competitor in that discipline.

Eden had also previously been training with Aharon as well. Yuval had previously trained with Alon and had achieved 65mts in FIM. As expected none of them had any difficulties with the 40 mt bi-fins dive, Manolo was the only one that had no difficulty with the repetitive 25 mt dive. This was new in the instructors course it requires a diver to descend to 25mts on surfacing he gets 1 min recovery then holds 1:15 static then 1 min recovery and dives to 25mts, he repeats this all together 3 times without additional rest. Eventually all succeded. The 4 mins static everyone succeeded on their first attempt. Yuval struggled a bit ,not having done any static in a long time.

The course was in English which was nobody’s first language and this presented some difficulties, particularly for Eden.

Continued…

An opportunity for all with the AIDA prerequisites to deepen their knowledge of freediving, sharpen their teaching skills and enjoy the beautiful Red Sea.

This is a chance to develop your freediving knowledge to a high level, to learn teaching and communication skills.
Applicants must be current holder of an AIDA**** certification, or the equivalent from another AIDA recognized organization.
The course carries full international certification.
Email: aharon@freedivers.net
phone: +972-52-7381684

An opportunity for all with the AIDA prerequisites to deepen their knowledge of freediving ,sharpen their teaching skills and enjoy the beautiful Red Sea

In my last post about the suit, I explained the importance of the suit and why this should be one’s first priority in choosing equipment for either freediving or spearfishing. Now here are my ideas on choosing what kind of suit, and some tips that might help.

The first consideration is fit, this is so little understood. I have met many even quite experienced divers who claimed that their suits fit perfectly when they very obviously didn’t. The proof is usually that they are shivering with cold when others with the same thickness of suit are still comfortable. A suit has to fit skin tight, restriction of movement should not be a problem as a good suit, unlike a scuba suit should be very flexible.

The point is it should fit everywhere with no “pockets” under the arm pits, and a good fit at the wrists and ankles, the hood should be snug at the neck and around the fac  ,without being over tight there.

The suit may seem over tight when it is dry particularly if it has material (like nylon) on the outside, but should feel like a second skin when it is wet .

It is nearly impossible to find the kind of fit I am talking about in a ready made suit. A ready made suit will always fit more or less, and you will get colder more or less.

There is at least one Italian suit maker, whom I know well, whose tailor made suits are virtually the same price as corresponding ready made suits by leading manufacturers. Their cut is superb, they give you an excellent choice of material, and of camouflage if you are a spearo, and their fit is perfect. They have a very good explanatory video of how exactly to measure yourself . You can order your suit from the internet and you should allow about 6 weeks to get it.

Now for the important question of type of suit and material. Except for the warmest of water (28°C and above) a suit should be 2 piece with hood attached. Spearos prefer the long john – pants configuration, this is where the trousers have shoulder straps. For the freediver who may do free immersion or use a monofin in CWT, this would be too restrictive.

The suit must have no zips for easy entry, it should be elastic enough for entry, with soap (soapless soap) without this.

As for the material the best compromise by far is material on the outside and open cell without a coating on the inside. The open cell adheres to the skin and gives fantastic insulation, and the material on the outside protects the suit and gives it its robustness.

Ultra performance freedive suits are slick rubber on the outside and open cell on the inside. This gives the ultimate in flexibility, warmth and slippage through the water. But this is all at the expensive of robustness, these suits are extremely delicate, their main enemy are finger nails when putting them on or off! These are not a good choice for spearos.

A good choice of neoprene is medium density, high density means minimal variation in buoyancy, a good choice for the deep freediver, low density means slightly more comfort, flexibility and warmth but the downside is a big penalty for the deep diver it requires a lot of weights to go down and when the suit compresses at depth you need to pull all that weight back to the surface.

Something else worth mentioning is the vest, slick on the outside and open cell on the inside of 1.5 mm, this can extend your season by a lot, this winter I have been using, without any discomfort, a 3mm suit slick and open cell in 21 degree water, spending 2hrs + in the water and my tolerance to cold is poor.

The last on the list are specialist suits, I just want to mention them but they are outside the scope of this article. There are hi–tec suits in the overall configuration for the No Fins disciplines. The overall in different thicknesses, with or without a hood is a good choice for No Limits as this stops water flushing under the jacket of a normal suit when descending feet first.

New Zealand has always been internationally know for the beauty of its natural heritage and the common decency of its people, two things sadly vanishing in the modern world. The case of Hectors Dolphin bears witness to this, the present Government of New Zealand is dismally failing in its obligation as the trustee of this Heritage, any benefit from the commercial imperative will soon disappear and if this species is allowed to vanish something of inestimable value will be lost for ever.

MESSAGE TO THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT OF NEW ZEALAND

WITH REGARD TO YOUR FAILURE TO PROTECT HECTORS DOLPHIN YOU HAVE FAILED AS THE TRUSTEE OF YOUR COUNTRY TO PROTECT ITS TREASURES AND GIVEN EXCUSE FOR GRAVE CONCERN .WHAT EXACTLY IS NOT FOR SALE ? WHERE WILL YOU DRAW THE LINE ? YOU ALSO HAVE, IN UNDERTAKING THE ROLE OF LEADERS OF YOUR NATION ,A SACRED OBLIGATION TO PROTECT

AND PRESERVE THE NATURAL BEAUTY AND RICHNESS OF YOUR ISLANDS ,WILL YOU AUTOMATICALLY CRAVENLY BOW TO THE COMMERCIAL IMPERATIVE ?

THIS SMALL CREATURE IS AN INTRINSIC PART OF THE VERY BEAUTIFULL BODY OF YOUR COUNTRY THAT MAKES IT UNIQUE IN THE WORLD .WE HAVE A TERM FOR PEOPLE THAT SELL THEIR BODIES,

IS THIS THE WAY YOU WANT YOUR CHILDREN TO DEFINE YOU AND THE WORLD TO PERCEIVE YOU ?

AHARON SOLOMONS

The question that comes up time after time, concerns which piece of equipment to buy first, and there seems to be a lot of confused thinking about this. The usual solution is the fins.

My answer is invariably the same – the suit. When I was told this, it took me a very long time to accept it. At first appearance there seem to be two possible answers, one for freedivers and one for spear fishermen. But although the answer is very clear for freedivers, actually they eventually come to the same point.

My biggest lesson came teaching potentially elite freedivers in Mexico. One thing has to be clear, if you want to make a living teaching elite freedivers you better have another job as well!!

Elite freedivers, with few exceptions, have a burning passion and no money.

I had two students with great potential and of course no money. At first they had borrowed suits, always borrowed suits are far too big, probably from a large and not particularly slim person. Our athletes

being slender and fit looked like a stick of spaghetti in a bean bag. After only half an hour in the water and two dives each, they were an interesting shade of blue and shaking like leaves in a high wind.

The next idea was doing all the warm ups dry, sitting in the boat. That helped a bit, but did not really solve the problem. In the longer sessions doing negative and FRC dives or doing drills, repeats to 30mts counting movements, it became clear that this was mission impossible. It was not possible to do sufficient dives to make any progress. Also if freediving is all about relaxation, try relaxing when you are shaking with cold!

I explained that with a good well fitting suit I could teach them 2 of the 3 depth disciplines: Constant weight, No fins and Free immersion. CNF is the most respected and admired of all the disciplines today

it is the most athletic and challenging, it is the choice of the minimalist. All you need is a suit a neck weight and a nose clip. Makes travelling easy. Try travelling with a monofin!

Free immersion has a history that goes back before recorded history, eventually after our ancestors solved equalisation issues it developed into Variable weights in a quest for ever deeper depths.

In the pool we could do Dynamic No Fins and Static.

Progress was electrifying the moment this was solved, one after another the Mexican records fell and I realised I was looking at world class potential. Also training was fun no longer something you had to force yourself into cold water to do.

In the last international competition in Greece, one of Israel’s best divers and our record holder in CNF was lent a specialist CNF suit by a British Athlete that happened to have the same size, and he improved his personal best by a staggering 10mts and new Israeli record.

Now as for the fisherman we forget that the suit is also, apart from warmth and comfort, an essential safety device. Fishing without a suit in summer with a weight belt is a recipe for disaster. If you come to the surface and blackout you sink! think about it. How often have I found fishermen on the shore so cold they could’nt talk. The fish are there today, and so it goes on and on till it does’nt go on any more. With a suit South African spearos have learnt that on a stressed dive open the flap of the weight belt and hold it during the ascent, then if you blackout the belt will release and you will reach the surface without the risk of sinking again.

If you have been smart enough to figger out that doing a course might not only save your life but be the shortest and safest way to realising what you are really capable of, then when to get the suit becomes the question. The suits that come with the course are usually 5mm one piece suits, these are barely adequate in summer and only if they fit really well. Really well means skin tight everywhere.

Apart from not being nearly as warm as a freediving 2 piece suit with a hood they are not nearly as flexible. So you waste more energy just moving the suit.

So if you can afford it buy your suit before the course and save the risk of managing half an hour in the water then enduring 1 1/2 hours shivering. A course is all about learning skills and a lot of repitition is needed.

The next blog will be on choosing what kind of wet suit is for you.

January saw the first AIDA Instructors course in Israel (Eilat, Red Sea). There were two people attending – Alon Rivkind and Shlomi Goldstein, we would like to welcome them as new instructors in AIDA, congratulations Shlomi and Alon.

Alon and Shlomi were both competition freedivers and both had had some previous experience in teaching, their reasons for joining AIDA were much the same as my own, in freediving today anyone can call himself an instructor and teach freediving, apart from the fact that many self appointed instructors and even some who have appointed themselves Instructor Trainers (Instructor of Instructors) have in fact very little knowledge of freediving. There is a kind of Wild West of freediving in Israel at the moment and the student having no standard of comparison believes implicitly in his own instructor.

We wanted to create a cadre of instructors in Israel that would have an internationally guaranteed standard, an elite in freediving instruction. The problem with a 1 man show, an instructor who has invented himself is two fold, when he decides to stop teaching his certificate is worthless, and secondly the insurance agencies do not easily accept them particularly if you aspire to teach. And AIDA may not recognise them as a prerequesite for more advanced training.

I met Alon first in 2008 when I visited Israel from Mexico, and in 2010 he attended all 4 seminars I gave on deeper freediving for divers already doing more than 40mts. I was very impressed with his potential and we discussed the problem that in Israel a deep diver was a 40mt diver. At this stage a diver that had ambitions in Israel for competition was limited to 40mts, the deepest one could tie off a buoy, or go down to Dahab. Which for some was impossible.

My opinion was that until we invested in a boat and counter weight system we would be extremely limited. Alon did both and the results speak for themselves!!

I met Shlomi last year and helped prepare him for his first major competition in Greece, and again I was impressed with his potential.

I am sure that Alon and Shlomi will both be a valuable addition to AIDA education in Israel. Well done guys!