Posts by theshred

Thanks for the tip on the belt. Its something I thought about a bit, and may play around with over the next few days. Also, just saw the spearfisherman decals you sent with the belt and suit. Thanks for the pleasant surprise, once again an example of your customer service. Now I just have to decide where to put them.
One question: What are the general hours of Pursuit Sparfishing's hq? I'd love a chance to stop by since I'll be in Fort Lauderdale, but if the FII class schedule is similar to PFI's, we probably wont finish until 6:00-7:00 in the evening, and I'm not sure how long it would take to get to your headquarters on a bus after that.

Hey guys, just got back. My Wetsuit is here, and it's great. Fits very well, nice comfortable and soft. It seems very well constructed. The weight belt is also very nice, But I may need to punch some more holes in it to get it tight to my 29-30" waist. I actually got it wrapped around twice if I used the largest hole and pulled it pretty tight. Anyways, great gear, and Dan was a pleasure to do business with. I will certainly consider his stuff again for future purchases (that 3mm suit might be a bit cold here in SoCal)...

Quote from Dan

You're welcome, may they serve you well. You should get the rest Monday.

I suspected as much. Unfortunately, I'm going to be at USD next week for some engineering stuff, and I think the knowledge that the rest of my gear should be at home waiting for me may slightly reduce my ability to focus :D. Anyways, I'll let you know what I think of the rest when I get back next Saturday.

Got my Pursuit C90's today! They're truly beautiful fins, and I can't wait to see how they do in the water. The H Dessault's are just a teensy bit big for my bare foot, but I think they should be nice and snug with a neoprene sock on. Anyways, big thanks to Dan for being helpful throughout the purchasing process. Hopefully my wetsuit and weight belt should be here soon.

Also got my Aeris F10 yesterday. Initially, it was a little confusing, as I'm very familiar with the general working of Suunto computers, and it's a bit different from them. After playing with it a bit more though, it seems pretty user friendly, and I think I'm going to like it once it get's to be time to dive with it.

Quote from ricksafer

Note the affected free diver didn't have, indeed, his snorkel "IN".
As some posts have mentioned, the multiple physiological elements involved are not altered by having the snorkel either IN or OUT.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the argument was never "If you have a snorkel in you'll blackout, and if you spit it out you won't." From what I've seen, the argument has been largely, that when you DO blackout, it's safer to have your mouth closed than to have a snorkel in it, and that clearing the snorkel/not immediately taking recovery/hook breaths may make BO more likely in a borderline situation. Regardless, neither of those have anything to do with the "physiological elements" of a blackout being altered merely by having a snorkel in or out. If this needs to be moved to the thread about snorkels in or out, feel free Mods, or just let me know and I'll take care of it.

This thread is amazing. While I'd seen most of these fish before, there are a couple new ones to me in here still. Awesome pics all around.

In order to somewhat contribute to this thread, I'll throw in a few more. Personally, I've always been a bit more interested in cartilaginous fish, and this thread is in short supply of them, so I'll throw a few in here.
(If these pics need to be resized let me know and I'll try to take care of it tomorrow).

Bowmouth Guitarfish (Rhina ancylostoma)

Giant Freshwater Stingray (Himantura chaophraya)

Goblin Shark (Mitsukurina owstoni)

Megamouth Shark (Megachasma pelagios)

Frilled Shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus)

And to answer the question in this thread, once I have adequate gear and some experience spearfishing, I'd be willing to shoot most of these fish provided that they aren't extremely rare. I think as far as spearfishing goes, with the exception of some of the really big sharks, I think I'd probably find trying to spear a swordfish or other billfish scarier than most fish with relatively formidable teeth.

I don't see any particularly compelling reason not to make a gentlemen's agreement over the issue, so I'll support it.

I don't think that it will majorly inconvenience anyone on the forum if some language is prohibited. With that said, people will always find ways around censors if they really care. Gerald raises a good point that eventually they're going to start hearing it at school, and probably while still at a pretty young age.

Thanks for the info. I registered on spearboard a while back to try to get involved, but the admin never approved my account or whatever. Doesn't matter much as I like this forum better from what I've seen. If it does start back up, even if not till this fall/winter, I'd love to take part.

Is the second to last pic from the freediving group at the Wavehouse? Are you a regular there? I've been trying to get down there to meet some local free divers and get some practice in. The one time I showed up, I didn't see anyone else that looked even remotely freediver-ish, so I swam laps for 3 hours with a little bit of dynamic work. If you are part of the group there, please let me know, as I'd love to get a chance to come check it out.

Other than that, welcome to the site and nice pics.

Okay, here's my 2 cents:
First off, everyone needs to take a second and calm down.

Searen: Take a second and look at where Dan's coming from. He's got this wonderful forum, that's a pretty small, close knit community fromw hat I can tell. In your 3 months of being here, you've posted 8 times, 3 of which were in this thread. Most of your posts have been about divers that have died. Thus, from Dan's perspective, perhaps you aren't contributing very much to the forum, and what you have contributed has seemed like advertising. He's not looking for advertisers, he's looking for people that can embrace the community and contribute regularly. Also, it may seem odd for him that after a somewhat lengthy absence, you instantly came back at a slight criticism. With that said, on my reading of Dan's post, he didn't imply that you were a lie or a cheat. He merely expressed a view that he's seen your time here as having little useful contribution, and too much advertising. Additionally, telling Dan he can Suck it, that he's got his panties in a wad, and that he needs to get with the program isn't going to help your case. Of course your promotions are things you believe in, it was never implied that it wasn't. That doesn't necessarily make it appropriate on the forum though, but I'm not one to decide things like that. Oh, and saying "I send this information so that you guys down in south Florida don't get yourselves killed" was a bit out of line in my opinion. It implies superiority, that you think you're better than them, and that you're saving them all from diving to their deaths by posting a couple stories. Useful information, yes, but that was a bit harsh of a way of phrasing it that changed it into a bit of a personal attack.,

Dan: I realize where the issue lies for you with Ren's posting. However, looking through his old posts, while he does post about divers that have passed away, which I think can be valuable albeit somewhat morbid, I didn't see anything along the lines of "and so you should all take a PFI course so you don''t die) or anything of the sort. While he may support education, and he may have a preferred school, I've seen littel in his posts (before today particularly) that has been true advertising, though I admit, I think there was a video or two I didn't watch. While his sudden appearance in this thread may seem off, and how he heard of it is unknown, he was probably a bit shocked to visit a forum he hasn't said much on and hasn't posted on recently (who knows if he reads it regularly as a guest or something) and find himself being criticized. I realize that you want the best for your forum, and people that contribute little don't help much, and advertising doesn't either. His attitude, which in some of his posts sounds like people are in serious danger if they haven't taken a course, is arguably not without good intentions. If freediving is anything like some of the other potentially dangerous activities I've observed the commmunities of for longer, deaths within the community can hit pretty hard, and no one wants them to happen. Anyhting that might help prevent unnecessary loss of life in my opinion, is at least worth a glance, and if he feels the need to encourage people to find some source of education, is that so wrong? Yes, it would be great if he was a more active part of the forum, but just out of curiosity, out of the 273 members of the forum, how many of the contribute regularly? While I'm sure the percentage is much higher than on a larger forum, somehow I doubt that ren is the only person that isn't a major contributer.

Well I hope I haven't offended anyone with that, it certainly wasn't meant to criticize either party involved. I was just trying to get people to take a step back and look at the situation from both sides before they continue to argue. Hopefully it helps a bit.

Just out of curiosity Dan, do you feel similarly about Guillaume Nery's Underwater Base jumping video?

Awesome video. Looks like it would be tons of fun

Interesting about the fins. For the same length of fin, how significant is the difference between the round cut vs. the V cut?

Am I mistaken in that it appears that those Speardiver C90 fins have the shape of the C100 fins?

This thread really makes me wish I could visit spearfishing store while I'm in FL this august, but i don't think I'll have time or transportation

Dan, while I don't know the dimensions of the RA float, 11 liters of Balsa would weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-3.5 pounds.

From:
http://woodworkingnetwork.com/Basswood/2010-04-07/Article.aspx?oid=1037556&fid=WWN-WWP-ARCHIVES&aid=62
Basswood is apparantly a little bit harder than pine, but I think it might have better woodworking properties for making into a float as well (Just a guess there).

Shallow, the buoyancy available from a wooden float depends pretty much on the density of the wood and how big of a float. From the link I provided, a cubic foot of basswood typically weighs from 20-37 pounds, while a cubic foot of water I believe weighs around 62 pounds for freshwater. Thus, a 1 cubic foot float would give about 25-42pounds of lift if made from basswood and in freshwater, and even higher if made of balsa.

I had the same suspicion about Balsa. Of the other two I mentioned, I believe Pine is the Harder of the two, but I'll have to check.

Off the top of my head, I don't think you can beat balsa for a low density wood, but you may want something a bit more durable. Perhaps basswood or Pine?

Hmm. Here's a link that may help in terms of densities:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-density-d_40.html