Posts by theshred

Yes it did, it was quite informative. Thanks for the response, and the video of Fredrick is quite impressive.

May I be the first to call you a lucky SOB for having him as your coach?

Also, while I don't know how the whole competition process works and such, it seems that a lot of the top name freedivers (Eg. Herbert Nitsch, Stephane Mifsud, Martin Stepanek, Tom Sietas, or Dave Mullins, for example on the guys side) aren't competing in the championship, which would seem like the largest/highest caliber competition. Is there any particular reason for this?

Awesome stuff. I believe I watched a video of Stephane Mifsud making a world record (it's been beaten sense then) 213m Dynamic in the pool with bifins as well. It's interesting that bifins can seem to hold their own in Dynamic despite the monofins prevalence in depth events.

Interesting, thanks for the info lunker. If he's doing the Level 2 course from Aug. 14-17 in Fort Lauderdale, then it will be the same class. I'll have to ask him if I see one of his posts sometime soon as I can't PM yet.

Thanks for the warm welcome guys. I'm pretty confident I'll take a strong liking to freediving and spearfishing both, and I already can't wait to get to FL for the FII course in a little over a month.

Well there's one positive review. I'll keep it in mind. At this point I've been considering heading to some shops (there are 2 freediving shops in San Diego) to try on various foot pockets just to get a sense of which fit the best. I will say that in looking at blades, the Speardiver fins have caught my eye, as they seem to have gotten great reviews, are priced quite reasonably compared to carbon fins from C4 or anyone else I've seen, and I like the idea of supporting a small, American company a bit more than say Omer. We'll see though. Still need another couple weeks of work to let my wallet recover from that Drysuit I just got.

Thanks for the link Dan. I think it'll be quite helpful when I'm shopping for footpockets.

Everything I've heard about the Stingrays has been rather positive, with them being much softer and more comfortable than the milleniums. I have however read that they can be somewhat difficult to fit certain blades into since the Stingrays have a rather large angle (I believe 22 degrees).

I use a Sporasub Mystic:

I love it. Great mask, low volume, and extremely comfortable. Almost feels like I don't have a mask on. I bought it of course with freediving in mind, but it's become my main mask for scuba anyways. For me, the most comfortable mask I've tried on, and I've tried on quite a few.

I also have an Atomic Frameless:

Also a nice mask, quite comfortable, great field of view. However, it's got a bit highter volume, so I don't think I'll use it for freediving. It's not quite as comfy as the Sporasub because the skirt isn't as soft of a material, but the seal is better than my Sporasub. The Sporasub can leak a little bit if I have a big smile from something, which I haven't noticed with the Atomic.

Finally, I have a Tusa Visualator that I don't use because I like the other two masks WAY more, but I found it on the bottom, so I'm not going to complain.

Hello everyone,
My name is Griffin. I currently live in San Diego California. To be quite honest, while this is forum dedicated to Freediving and Spearfishing, at this point I'm mostly a Scuba Diver. I've been scuba diving for a bit over a year now, but have not and will not spearfish on scuba. I have gone out once for some freediving/spearfishing, but I was having some problems with congestion that day, and thus had a horrible time trying to equalize my sinus pressure. I still enjoyed myself, though the only notable fish we saw was a yellowtail that swam through while we were just practicing freediving, before there were any guns in the water. Since then, I've been meaning to get started in freediving, but most of the finances and time that would go towards it thus far have gone to advancing my scuba diving. However, this August I'm signed up to take the FII Intermediate course in Fort Lauderdale, FL, which I expect to be a great way to get into the sport. Thus I'll be purchasing most of my freediving gear this summer, with the exception of a wetsuit for local waters and anything spearfishing related. That will come later. At this point, I already have a mask and snorkel, specifically the Sporasub Mystic mask, which I love and use for scuba diving anyways, and an IST SN-36 snorkel, for those that were interested.
For those that are curious, my username is a reference to my guitar playing, though it could be connected to my skiing as well (I've been playing guitar for 6 years, various musical instruments for 10 years, and skiing for 11 and a half). As I didn't see the announcement about not putting numbers in new usernames (here until after registering, I apologize, and if I need to change it/remove the numbers, I'll be happy to. Just tell me how.
One last thing, as per this thread, I will admit to being 16 years old, albeit only for another few months. However, having been a part of forums whether for guitar, scuba diving , or whatever else for somewhere over at least 3 years, I will say that I've generally been very hesitant to admit my age, simply because I much prefer being treated like an adult/anyone else on the forum. Thus, please don't concern yourselves too much with it.
All in all, this looks like a great community, and I'm looking forward to being part of it as I progress into freediving and spearfishing.