Freedive South Florida !
Posted By Paul Kotik on 20 March 2006
The reef systems between Key Largo and Palm Beach are well worth the effort and modest expense involved in getting there. Boat and divers drift along, parallel to the shore, over a world-class underwater environment with abundant wildlife and numerous wrecks. Spearfishing is very popular and generally productive. Visibility varies, especially in winter, but sometimes is superb. Once out there, I'm a happy freediver indeed.
For serious depth, training and the like, we've got to adopt a slightly different strategy for living with the currents. Once we start pushing past 100 ft / 30m and, for some of the top divers who call South Florida home, getting down to the extreme depths in constant ballast and no-limits, our priority is a straight descent line. A strong surface current, common inshore, yields a steeply angled line and imposes additional physical and psychological burdens on the divers.
A little further offshore, with the hard bottom at 300 -500 feet / 90 - 150m, we frequently encounter midwater currents which deform the descent line into the shape of the letter "C", or yank the bottom weights aside to form an "L". This is a both a nuisance and a hazard. The last thing a freediver needs to see when making a turnaround at 70 meters is a bottom plate receding into the distance as a deep current whisks him/her away.
For deep freediving with a straight descent line, we head way, way out. We need a homogenous current, with respect to speed and direction, from surface to bottom plate. To get this on a reliable basis, for descent lines of 165 - 330 feet/ 50 -100m, we think in terms of going 7-10 miles offshore, where the bottom is 1,000 feet / 300 meters below the keel. The dive rig drifts on its own, with the boat orbiting at a safe distance and monitoring shipping and pleasure traffic. This, people, is the big blue at its biggest and bluest.
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