At 11:37 AM 8/31/01 -0400, Lee Bell wrote:

>Kuty wrote:
>
> > There is one more advantage to those watches (beside being a guy thing and
> > so cool :-)  ).  You can check your depth when you do free dives without
> > scuba gear (and the dive computer on your hand).
>
>I'm not sure about the other Citizens, but unless you're about as deaf as I
>am, you're not going to like using the Citizen HyperAqualand watch for this.
>It has an ascent alarm that any freedive is guaranteed to set of.  I can't
>hear it, really, but everyone near me checks their computers every time mine
>goes off.

         Lee's HyperAqualand is so sensitive that it goes off for no
apparent reason causing everyone but Lee to check their computers and
gauges, and reflecting on this led me to think about a change I made in my
free diving practices that might be worth a little thought by new divers.

         On a two tank dive when the dive sites are close to one another
there is often an opportunity to snorkel between dives and, of course, to
free dive.  In fact, one leads so inexorably to the other that some divers
take off their computers to avoid putting them in error mode or racking up
a lot of one minute dives flashing slow.  At least I used to, until a new
diver asked me what I was doing and after I told him asked something like,
"Then is it a good idea to free dive while you're off-gassing during your
surface interval?"  On reflection, I couldn't tell him why putting on a six
pound weight belt, hyperventilating, diving down thirty or forty feet, and
rocketing to the surface again and again was a good way to  minimize the
risk of DCS.

         Although I'm not an instructor and I have no medical evidence for
this opinion, talking with this new diver, thinking about my computer's
reaction, and learning that the Ama and other professional free divers
occasionally suffer from DCS has convinced me not to free dive during the
short surface interval between dives in a two tank dive.  Perhaps I'm wrong
in my estimation of the risk, but I think it's a question that deserves
some consideration, and as yet I haven't read any definitive medical
opinions about it.


DPTNST,


John