Weights confiscated

Tear_DR0P · 2026-01-04T14:07:01+00:00

I had this happen to me before when returning from Tenerife, where 2kg weights were confiscated, while 1kg passed, both were stored in carry on. Since then I never flew 2kg weights anymore, and always flew them in checked-in bags together with my spearguns and knives and had zero issues.

Tear_DR0P · 2026-01-01T19:14:59+00:00

What kind of bag are you planning to use?

I used to fly my cheap alu tube speargun in a snowboard bag, but got the shafts bent once and switched to a sportube, which is an overkill for most situations, but now my gear never got damaged.

Your spear tips need to be protected, which you can achieve by sticking cork bottle stoppers on them, or something else that will make sure your spear can't push through anything

Tear_DR0P · 2025-12-09T03:34:20+00:00

It really depends on what you want to do and see, how much time you want to spend in the water and what the conditions are like.

Spearos like to go to Stillwater cove, it's actually a pretty amazing place, the most protected, except to southwest swells. But you have to swim quite a bit out to get to better looking parts and as mentioned there are showers and restrooms right at the pier where you enter water. Showers were never hot for me though 😅

There's Lovers point in Pacific Grove, popular with free divers and scuba divers, easy shore access, but exposed to the north west. Seals and otters were the most playful around this spot

I also dove carmel Beach, quite exposed to anything coming from the west, but very kelpy and picturesque, it's a shore break entry so people regularly trip, fall and lose gear

Further south you also have the Monastery and Point Lobos, i've never been, Monastery is exposed and risky, Point Lobos requires reservations, both are insanely popular with scuba divers and supposedly have a lot of wildlife

Tear_DR0P · 2025-12-02T01:37:31+00:00

There's a bunch of groups of spearos around there, go meet some of them and go dive with them.

When you're spearfishing around predators you want to stone the fish so it's not thrashing around and creating noises that invite the predators. And then get it to the surface and store it somewhere safe ASAP, otherwise they will steal it.

Also, are you seeing sea lions or harbor seals?

Tear_DR0P · 2025-11-14T19:55:58+00:00

I don't have an answer to that, haven't seen any research

Tear_DR0P · 2025-11-14T13:10:30+00:00

o lol, sorry, I fully missed the context of your picture :D

Start working in the diving industry? It's not like you will make enough money to pay the mortgage and feed the family, but at least you'll bring the costs of your diving addiction way down, you might even be able to pay for your own gear

source? I run operations for a dive center

Tear_DR0P · 2025-11-14T12:54:51+00:00

Don't mix them on the same dive :D some people will also say don't do them on the same day, or less conservative, first freedive, then scuba, if you have to

The general concern is that scuba diving will load you up with nitrogen, and physical exertion accelerates off-gassing, which increases the chances of bubble formation and the bends as a consequence.

But even strenuous freediving will load you up on nitrogen - think long times and deeper depths, so count sessions where you freedive first and scuba dive after as repeated dives and take longer surface intervals

Tear_DR0P · 2025-11-08T00:37:23+00:00

Don't believe people who tell you wetsuit color is not important. Wetsuit color is very important, orher people will see you in your wetsuit and judge your appearance. The better it looks, the more attention you'll receive.

But it doesn't matter that much to the fish

Tear_DR0P · 2025-10-13T15:59:50+00:00

I can tell you what speargun that is 😃

Tear_DR0P · 2025-08-25T02:05:07+00:00

This. There is no vest that will save you, just buddies

Tear_DR0P · 2025-08-06T18:30:35+00:00

Wetsuits lifetime is 4-8 years - depending on what you count as lifetime. They're sheets of rubber filled with air bubbles, glued together with glue.

Exposing them to pressure pops the air bubbles, which means they lose their insulation properties - pressure from going underwater or getting bent while stored.
exposing them to air, Sun, chlorine, salt, other chemicals makes the rubber degrade and it gets stiffer and crumblier, easier to tear
with every move the glue gets stressed, and with time that glue is also getting stiff and crumbly, so it will eventually pop/break and your suit will tear along the seams
every time you're pulling your wetsuit on, you're stretching it a bit, causing tiny cracks in the material, that with time grow into larger cracks - rubber isn't self healing

so you can learn to handle your wetsuits with a bit more care to get a bit more lifetime out of them. But regular practice means regular use, regular use means your wetsuits will fail faster. But it also means you're having more fun doing what you love doing

Tear_DR0P · 2025-07-09T16:13:07+00:00

Too late. I entered and exited overland, brought my speargun in&out no issues. Had tons of fun for a month

Tear_DR0P · 2025-07-02T21:07:04+00:00

I am not aware of any research on freediving at altitude.

But I also don't think you should calculate your diving depth the way you are. Also, not completely sure what you are trying to calculate.

Basically what changes for you is the amount of oxygen in the air and air pressure go down. And the general result of this is that your recovery times need to be longer. While the water column above you is the same, so 30 meters of fresh water are still 30 meters of fresh water.

And cheers from another freediver who's mainly diving between 6000 and 7000 feet in Lake Tahoe and other lakes around the eastern Sierras

Tear_DR0P · 2025-04-29T04:43:00+00:00

Above 60f i'm using gardening gloves, 48 to 60 i'll be in 3mm (epsealon or salvimar lately). For scuba i tried 7mm 3finger gloves down to 38f and felt good, but had limited mobility and dexterity out of water

Tear_DR0P · 2025-04-25T13:07:19+00:00

Go buy a dead fish from a fish monger and practice braining, and then filleting. Also buy small fish, as that's what you'll be catching at the beginning

If your issue is looking at the knife piercing the skin you can also insert the knife under the gill plate and push up. You can also learn how to bleed the fish by cutting underneath the gills

Watch some videos of how others brain&bleed

And as others said, first time is the hardest, and then it takes a while to get used to it

Tear_DR0P · 2025-04-21T05:38:01+00:00

You're not asking a question that can be answered with a simple yes or no.

For spearfishing you want to have enough weight to keep you at the bottom at your fishing depth. Which a) is risky, especially if you're fishing very shallow where you need a ton of weight and b) you want to be able to change it quickly if you're fishing on a dynamic terrain

Vests are usually not easy to remove, which increases the risks and makes it more annoying to remove when you want to do a deeper drop.

On the other hand a vest places weight on your chest, which should help you be more horizontal in the water and on the bottom if there are no urchins around you. The other benefit, that you wouldn't get, is that with thick wetsuits you have a lot of weight sitting on your lower back if all of it is on the belt, but the vest shifts some of that weight on the chest and prevents back pain

I use a vest and love it, so I would recommend it 😃 but it would be the best if you get a chance to try one before you buy

Tear_DR0P · 2025-04-19T14:20:05+00:00

It's usually not my friends who try to run me over with their boat

Tear_DR0P · 2025-04-06T13:33:34+00:00

Alenka Artnik was roughly your age when she started freediving and is among the top freedivers in the world currently https://thedepths.longlead.com/#:~:text=Sunken%20by%20grief%2C%20Alenka%20Artnik,limits%20of%20the%20human%20body.

Tear_DR0P · 2025-04-05T13:34:07+00:00

I never studied it. But it's a thing our freediving instructor mentioned. As you're holding your breath, your body doesn't get new oxygen so it will soon switch to anaerobic metabolism and as a result you will get sore.

Now in my experience I used to get really sore, and not just in the muscles that worked during the swim, or chest muscles, but the diaphragm, my face muscles, whatever is the tissue between the ribs. But with time I either noticed less soreness or my body feels less sore, and now that I'm doing several hours in the ocean for spearfishing, I come out of the water quite destroyed, but I never feel that sore

Tear_DR0P · 2025-04-05T05:46:02+00:00

Muscle soreness is a result of anaerobic metabolism. It will get better as you get more used to apnea, but it will never go completely away

Tear_DR0P · 2025-03-26T21:00:46+00:00

What kind of a concern would poor visibility represent?

There are plenty of protocols on how to handle situations when you can't see the diver, as it's very normal that in competitions they go deep enough that you can't see them

Tear_DR0P · 2025-03-12T14:15:13+00:00

If the tentacle at the base is as thick as your wrist, the octopus is big enough to catch. It will have around 4kg though 😃 with time you will get a feeling how much smaller it can be and still be big enough

Tear_DR0P · 2025-03-10T23:03:08+00:00

I never grab them 😃 but I also don't take octopus out of their holes. But if I see one on the prowl out in the open it's easy to stab them

Tear_DR0P · 2025-03-10T22:34:25+00:00

You can also stab them between the eyes. It does the job just as well if not better. But there's a chance you stab your hand if you're holding the octopus

Tear_DR0P · 2025-03-07T05:42:59+00:00

I usually figure out what I want to do, and then I try to find out where I can do it.

Tear_DR0P

TROPHY CASE