This dome has been placed at 10m by some of our SCUBA friends at the Dolime Quarry. We had a great day at the Quarry with 17 degree surface temperature and thermocline at 12m.
Category: Video
What is Freediving – Emma Farrell and Sara Campbell
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60i8bVZfkTM]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ZXZFJb9tk&feature=relmfu]
Freedive Toronto on Citytv’s Breakfast Television
Toronto, Friday August 5, 2011
It was an early rise for the Freediving National Championships organizers, crew and athlete this morning as they appeared in today’s Breakfast Television show with Sangita Patell and the LiveEye crew at the Etobicoke Olympium Pool. Under the watchful eye of Freedive Toronto President and AIDA Instructor Doug Sitter, Sangita faced her long-standing fear of water and attempted a breath-hold performance called static apnea, which is a discipline of freediving done on one breath of air, face down in the water without the exertion of movement. This discipline is measure of time spent on a breath-hold (also called sportive apnea). For a first timer, Sangita did really well in her attempt, reaching a personal best of 56 seconds.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYK3FTlnVqA]
Freediving video series from 1998
This is a video series of the british Freediving team preparing for World Freediving Cup – Sardinia 1998 with over 20 countries taking place.
It is very interesting to see how far the sport has progressed, with regards to depth, breath hold time and also the safety of the sport.
Part 1:
[youtube=http://youtu.be/0voNailcOg0&w=640&h=385]
Part 2:
[youtube=http://youtu.be/ir_raI7WDLo&w=640&h=385]
Part 3:
Umberto Pelizzari has the deepest dive of the competition with 60 meters.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/XVyJdgaSC-M&w=640&h=385]
Part 4:
[youtube=http://youtu.be/Ycvqacm0I60&w=640&h=385]
2011 Freedive Spring Adventure
The first major dive trip 2011! What better place to go then Tobermory Ontario. The water was a bit cold (6 to 9 Deg. C) but that didn’t stop anyone from a good time.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Yv5YsbGwU]
Family Vacation and training Benefits
Just came back from Long Island Bahamas… It’s been the second formal
training for me in the span of 3 months. The first one – last October in
Monrtreal with William Winram, member of the FreediveToronto club and World Cup
Champion – I wasn’t able to attend to the full extent (damn, I have to,
given the chance again!). This second training was actually during vacation
with my wife, which, quite conveniently, “coincided” with a depth training
course by another William – Trubridge, current World Record holder on CNF
and his wife Brittany, who is a Yoga instructor with an emphasis on
breathing techniques and lung exercising. Daily yoga practices (with one really
cool session which started at sunrise right on the cliff facing the Atlantic ocean),
diving off the platform on the Dean’s Blue Hole, the supernatural beauty of Long
Island, my October training in Montreal – all of these contributed to greatly
improve my depth range and confidence. The outcome? For the first time in my life,
I crossed the 40m depth mark and 30+ meter dives became much more
comfortable than ever before. There was also the pleasant surprise of meeting Carla
Sue-Hanson – she was assisting in our open water training. Carla is in pursuit of the
US National record for CNF diving. So if you’re looking to train for depth in warm
waters close to home, don’t think twice; Dean’s Blue Hole is hard to beat. It’s close
and accessible from Toronto on a 3 hr direct flight to Nassau and a few daily
connections to Long Island. There are no waves or thermocline at Dean’s Blue Hole,
hardly any currents, great visibility as well as a world-class dive setting.
Throw into the mix the super-friendly local people, fresh-off-the-sea
(definitely beats fresh-off-the-boat-and-into-the-freezer) seafood, excellent spearfishing
opportunities, miles and miles of white sandy beaches without a soul in sight and
you have the perfect place to train or just unwind and relax. This is our second trip to
Long Island and I hope there will be more like this in the future!
ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE DEAN’S BLUE HOLE!
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
[slideshow]
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18CN5pXzi7Y&w=640&h=390]
Training CWT dive at The Blue Hole
Sergei
Bogota Columbia – Underwater Rugby
We have arrived in Bogota!
Three of us from Ontario have made the trip to Bogota to compete at the Columbian National Underwater Rugby Competition. The tournament is being held at Simon Bolivar Swimming Pool Complex. We have joined a North American composite team made up of 5 Canadians and 7 US players.
This is a short video I found explaining Underwater Rugby
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fen7bv4Sys]
If you are interested in additional information:
Bogota Underwater Rugby Club Home Page:
www.castoresrugbysub.com
Local News Report on Underwater Rugby:
www.colombianews.tv/news/101210-bogota-underwater-rugby
Tobermory 2010 Part II
Tobermory part II. The second offical Tobermory trip of the year and the last Tobermory trip for 2010 for the FreediveToronto Group. The weather just didn’t want to co-operate causing serveral people to decide it wasn’t going to be for them. Three of us decided that we didn’t want to waste an oportunity to get out of the city and have a little fun. The waves were too big for a long trek along the coast but it certainly made for some interesting video.
I hope that the weather is better for next year.
If you like the music it is from a band called “Prince Perry and the Gladtones” (PrincePerry.com). Perry is a long time friend of the Freedive Comunity and he agreeded to let me use the music in this video.
Enjoy!
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1ZhZ7KtnUo]
Freediving at Tobermory, June 25-27, 2010
Saturday started with dark grey sky and heavy rain, which stopped only at around 9 am. First 2 dives were from the shore. Temp varied from “almost balmy” 18C on the surface to not so hot 12-14C at depth. My 5 mil Elios did very well and it was more the enough to stay in water for a long time. Feet would need some extra protection though. We checked Little Tub in the morning and Lighthouse point mid day where fog was setting pretty heavy at times, so we were not sure if boat trip was indeed happening, but at ~3pm Francois got a call from boat operator and we headed out off shore to check on 2 wrecks at 4 pm. First one was JAMES C. KING at Depth: 7 to 30 m and second – HILO SCOVILLE Depth: 7 to 30 m. Both are listed as “recommended for advanced divers only”. Visibility was pretty good, at least 10-12 m, and when sun showed up it became even better. Skies cleared up completely by the end of our boat excursion with picture perfect sunset to enjoy.
I was not diving on Sunday, but pretty sure everybody had a great time at Grotto. Looking forward to do this again (and again, and again!)
Freedive visitors from Montreal
It was 4pm when I left the office for the first boat dive of the season, with the added bonus of Francois and Marie-Odile joining me from from Montreal. I wasn’t sure what to expect, with G20 and all the police and safety zones, but it turned out that most people had left the city, so I had the fastest drive ever.
Doug had picked up our guests at the Island airport and dropped them off at the ferry to the island marina, where we met amongst all the police officers.
The short ferry ride to the island is a nice reminder for the body to shed the busy city/work life and get ready to dive.
The boat is in the water and there is very little prep to get ready to go out. We emptied some water from the covers, loaded the bags and started the engines and were ready to go. Sorry about the thumb in the video below, which is caused by me being a new iPhone owner.
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rp_r61z1Kc]
I am trying an application from my new iPhone called Motion GPS, so I can show you where we dove. It will also show the top speed of 37.7 mph for now top tuned dive boat.
At the dive location we had 58.7 meters and 22 degrees at the surface, which is nice and warm if you are wearing a wet-suit. The reason I say this is because I for the first (and last) time had forgotten the top part of my suit at home. I decided to try diving anyway and thought about Eric Fattah who had told me that they had tested diving in the winter without a suit to get the dive reflex to kick in faster. I was ok in the surface, but when I started pulling down and hit the thermocline at 7 meters I really had to try to calm down and tell myself that it was “just” cold. A few more pulls and my bald head started pounding and I felt out of breath. I had to turn and raced for the surface at 14m, which would be my deepest dive of the day. My hats of to Eric and the vancouvers boys, who must have bigger ….. than me. I think I will try a no suit dive again some day, because it always frustrats me when I can’t override my emotions and tell my brain that I will be ok.
Francois and Marie-Odile had several dives, but had never dove in waves before, so they joined me in the boat after about 30 minutes, so they wouldn’t get seasick. One of the ways to avoid motion issues when there are waves is to bring a snorkel and just lie in the surface breathing and just slowly go up and down with the waves.
We had a very nice boat ride back, because the wind had died down and the waves were almost gone.
We had a beer at the bar which always make any dive better and I am convinced it improves my breath holds.
The last image was taken on the ferry back to Toronto which sums up, why these dive trips are so nice.
I want to thank Francois and Marie-Odile for flying down from Montreal to join us here in Toronto and for going straight from the plane to the boat, you made a great night even better.