Posts by black1

My ears are the same way after a few days in the water, I just did 8 days in a row in the water diving like mad and my left ear was shot 5 days into it, but, I had to dive to finish my work. The best thing is an ibuprofen for the swelling and drops of equal amounts of alcohol/vinegar, this will dry out your ear and kill any bacteria, but, if it gets real bad simply don't dive until it gets better because you can damage your ear or get a real nasty infection, my ear was clogged to the point of not hearing in it and it sounded like I had an orchestra of flutes in it, it's getting better now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlgBo08SyKE

Shotta's was a good movie, different than your ordinary gangster because it is based on Jamaican posse gangs, well done movie for sure.

Yes your right, sorry it is SPEARING magazine (has been a long week...lol). Yeah I had to drag him around the pool and the shallow end nearly killed us both since it is only 3 feet and we both are over 6'2. Mike is a great guy and it was a pleasure meeting him, he is a strong diver and also a good presenter and is going to make a great instructor for sure...congrats to him. Yeah Charlie Kirk puts you through the ringer with hundreds of scenarious and rescue drills followed by class and pool work, we all learned alot and I look forward to seeing Mike again in the future and hope we can dive together sometime soon, please tell him I said congrats and to keep in touch.

Well one more day and I will be finished, I am now a certified safety supervisor and assistant basic instructor and after tomorrow will be able to work my way up to full instructor, been a lot of hard work and lot's and lot's of diving. I came into this course knowing I would learn a lot, but, not quite this much, it has been a real pleasure meeting and diving with some great people and all of them are now some seriously good and safe divers with lot's of knowledge. I am real proud of all the accomplishments and even if this course didn't come with a certificate it has been well worth it for me personally. I am a strong and comfortable diver at depth and can handle lot's of problems if needed down deep and I proved that to myself and to the others and now look forward to moving up the ranks with PFI to learn even more and will be working alot with them in the near future and will hopefully meet some of you there if you decide to take any courses, you won't regret it.

Thanks guys, I have about 5 minutes to write this before I pass out for real, been a long day. Well we just did our trainer pool challenge's to see if you have what it takes to save a life or your own and they put you threw the ringer and all in a good way (for me) to challenge yourself in case of an emergency. All of these we did righ after each other in a row so you could imagine the CO2 buildup and lactic acid buildup, wont go into much detail but here was our day, class work for several hours followed by pool challenges, challenges were first up 800m swim with fins = 32 25 meter laps, tread water for a very long time, 50m dynamic underwater swim, 300m swim no fins or snorkel just mask, rescue diver swim while dragging partner (mine was Mike who owns and runs spearfishing magazine, he is 6'4) and giving rescue breaths every 5 seconds for 100m, then 2 minute exhale static....yep exhale static were you breathup then exhale passively and hold underwater for 2 minutes....after all what we just did....I completed it all and came home and finished my presentation paper on "Physics and Physiology" of freediving just a little while ago.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Hi guys, haven't been around lately due to baby details and now in my PFI Instructor class which is going great, diving, diving and more diving is what we have been doing and also long hours in class going over D.A.N. safety, Advanced course material, pool work with rescue drills driven into you, long hours on the Ocean in deep water doing drills. I have learned a hell of a lot in this course and feel very confident in my safety and rescue drills which should be a comfort to my dive partners, but, hope I never have to use them. We were combined with the advanced course for 4 days and while they did some deep dives we did our rescue scenarios on them along with safety just as if it were an actual freedive competition environment, we had 4 students do 40 meters and 1 a 45m and one a very big 50 meters (165ft), safety students (us) were doing primary and secondary safety at depths of 55 to 75ft depths up to 33 ft all day long back to back and then being put to some serious tests with deep simulated blackouts, samba's and one diver blacked out at 60 meters were you have to physically haul them up along with the dive line and then swim a hell of a long way back to the boat, pull them up the ladder and get O2 going along with emergency help...phewww all this after being at class at 8 in the morning and leaving at 11:30 at night the night before and diving all day. I can't wait to simply go out and spearfish after this, will be a nice break, but this is what I have wanted for a long time and wish to be able to share and in the end teach all what I have learned and learn from others as well along the way....that's what life is about to me to begin with... Experience's. Take care everyone and will give another update in a week when it's all over.

Yeah this week of bad weather is killing me.

Nice Harry, when the weather calms down were on it again...and again....and again...

Spierre fantastic fins.

Fishhound what world record holder? yes O2 toxicity is a problem and it is not so much the O2 amount you bring down with you (it does help) but more the amount you spend while down. You could suck on O2 for half and hour, but, it does not make any difference if you dont know how to minimize your O2 consumption...especially when spearing. The trick David Blaine did were he held his breath for 15 minutes or so was done by him sucking on pure O2 for awhile, but, he sat there motionless for 15 minutes!!
Sucking on pure O2 is NOT a safety measure for swb and it would do you good my friend to learn more about the physiology of apnea and swb. Everyone is always looking to cut corners with freediving or freedivespearfishing and usually it is the younger crowd or those who feel they can make it easier...there is no tricks or secrets or magic pill, what there is is education, expierience, dedication and and most of all an understanding of yourself and what you are capable of all learned in time from the afermentioned. Our sport is already a very dangerous one and many of our brothers and sisters die each year from it, so in my humble opinion it is best to forget about this and simply work on improving your capabilities in time.
Comfort while diving deeper comes in time and becomes more rewarding, if 40 to 50ft is uncomfortable or extremely short bottom times then it is your bodys way of saying I am not used to this and there are avenues you need to work on in order for your body to come to terms with that depth and longer bottom times and it will happen believe me, but, there is no trick whether it be pure O2, eating sodium bicarbonate, massive alkaline diet, baking soda or anything else that will get you to a more comfortable place and enjoyment while spearing than plain old diving...diving...and more diving. Be safe my friend and have confidence that you can get deeper and longer with time.

Learn about acidic and alkaline blood levels and what happens when you dive, when you exert energy, the bohr effect and other things like that and you will see what I mean.

May I ask what it is that you want to achieve in 40ft of water after sucking on pure O2? with a little practice most people can stay at 40ft for more than 2 minutes so what exactly are you wanting to get out of this? are you spearing? just hanging out? what.

Hello Matt.

"not all guns are just fine. "

I dont mean fine in terms of certain mechanics or details of the gun, but, fine in a personal way to the person who shoots and kills fish with them just fine that's all. I understand there are elements to a gun that makes this or that perform better overal than a particular brand, but, was not meaning this in my post.

"everyone can then make their choice based on whose opinion they feel aligns with their own."

Which in the end there will be some who agree with one opinion and some who agree with the others opinion and in the end all guns researched would be fine for a particular person.

The damage is already done and it is not over by a long shot unfortunately. The oil has sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor almost the entire Gulf and will kill the first building blocks of life starting with the algae and then step by step all marine life which feeds off of this chain will die, there is no candy coating this and we have not seen the last of it and this is truly sad.

Hatch guns are just fine, Mako guns are just fine, Abellan guns are just fine...there are different guns for different people on different budgets, some shoot better, some look better, some feel better...so be it. Hatch is a 3rd generation family of gun builders building guns long before any of us were around so in my opinion that alone is worth respect and there is no need to dis any of there items...if you dont like them for any reason then so be it they work just fine for others. There are things Dan likes that another person could care less about and the same goes with what Harry may feel is best or GR or anyone of us, a thread like this or even a pool test would just go round and round, pick what you like about a gun, research it, save your money for it and buy it if it suits YOU and enjoy it, thats my opinion.

"Bikini's a restricted area for members that post fish pictures" LOLOLOL

What a waste of time and money, nice report Dan thanks.

Welcome Craig nice to have you here.

I am selling my Euro X 110 with Riffe horizontal reel, all is in great condition for $390

It looks like a sound boat with a good condition trailer (from the photos) I would be mostly looking into the engines and maybe get a diagnostic check (hook up to a computer) which are not that expensive from a local marina just to make sure all is good and then yah buy it.