More Freediving

Date: August 18, 2012
Location: Dutch Springs, PA

I had been itching to do so more freediving since my initiation into the sport back in mid-July, and I finally got the chance this past weekend. After a two-hour drive, I joined my new freediving buddy Frank the "Quarry Turtle" (or "QT," as I like to call him) and some other guys who dive Dutch Springs regularly. It was loads of fun, but I also learned a few important lessons ...

Freediving is exhausting! In a six-hour period, I made about 50+ dives (my deepest being around 80 feet). Some of the guys who are local arrived earlier, dove longer and racked up 70+ dives! I thought I was in pretty good shape, but by the end of that day, I was thoroughly drained and barely able to walk back to my car.

It is a very bad idea to have a big meal the night before freediving. The evening before my dives, Asieya and I had dinner with a couple she knows from work (Ben and Lucia). The two share our carniverous tendencies, so we decided to go to a churrascaria called Texas de Brazil. This is one of those places where servers bring meat-on-a-spit to your table until you beg them to stop. Of course, the dinner devolved into a typical challenge among men: The first one to turn his card over to the red side (signifying "uncle"), or turn down the offers from the 'parade of meat' that was passing by our table, would be declared the loser. I won, but the 'food baby' I carried with me in my stomach the next day made it a Pyrrhic victory. I feel like my dive times were half what they could have been if I'd had the extra room in my body for air!

Anyway, I'm not yet at a place where I have the talent or equipment to get video of my dives, but I did find the nicely done video above, which shows what it is like to dive at Dutch Springs on a clear day. FYI, I have visited all of the 'attractions' show in the video.