8 Mistakes Beginners Make In Freediving
I made my first freediving mistake before I even got in the water. I was in a rush, nervous, and trying way too hard to look like I belonged. I showed up with the wrong gear, didn’t hydrate properly, and nearly panicked five meters down because I thought pushing through discomfort made me tough. It didn’t. It made me stupid. That first day taught me more than any course could. And if you’re just starting your freediving journey, maybe these eight mistakes I and so many others have made will help you avoid learning the hard way. 1. Thinking It’s About Holding Your Breath On the surface (pun intended), freediving looks like a game of breath-holding. Dive in, hold your breath, come up. Easy, right? But it’s not about brute force. It’s not about gritting your teeth and white-knuckling through contractions. Freediving is about efficiency, relaxation, and awareness. The moment you start to fight, you’re doing it wrong. Beginners often focus only on how long they can hold their breath. But what really matters is how relaxed you can stay while doing it. It’s not a contest. It’s a conversation with your body. Avoid it by slowing everything down. Learn to breathe better before trying to dive deeper. 2. Skipping Proper Training You wouldn’t walk into a climbing gym and try to scale the highest wall with no harness, right? Freediving deserves the same respect. Too many beginners watch a couple of YouTube videos and think they’re ready for 20 meters. They’re not. Freediving is more than a sport. It’s a science. You need to understand equalization, CO2 tolerance, blackout protocols, and what your body is actually doing at depth. Avoid it by taking a certified freediving course with a reputable instructor. It’s not just for safety. It’s the foundation for everything else. 3. Diving Alone This one’s a biggie. People dive alone because they’re embarrassed, impatient, or think they know better. But the ocean doesn’t care about your confidence. Shallow water blackouts are real. One wrong move and you might never come up. Freediving alone isn’t brave. It’s reckless. Avoid it by always diving with a trained buddy. Someone who knows how to spot you, rescue you, and respect the sea. 4. Rushing the Descent You’re on the buoy. Your heart’s pounding. You take a big breath and kick down like your life depends on it. It doesn’t. That’s the problem. Most beginners try to get to depth too fast. They waste energy, fail to equalize, panic, and shoot back up frustrated. Going fast doesn’t get you deeper. Going calm does. Avoid it by focusing on technique. Streamline your body. Relax your legs. Equalize early and often. Let gravity help. 5. Ignoring the Mind Game Freediving isn’t just physical. Your mind will throw everything at you—fear, doubt, boredom, ego. If you don’t train your thoughts, they’ll control your dive. That tight feeling in your chest? That urge to breathe at 15 meters? That’s not danger. That’s your brain panicking. Know the difference. Avoid it by practicing mindfulness. Meditate. Visualize. Get comfortable with discomfort. Mental strength is a muscle too. 6. Choosing the Wrong Gear Raise your hand if you’ve bought fins that looked cool but felt like paddling with bricks. (Guilty.) Or a mask that leaks. Or a wetsuit that makes you feel like a sausage. The wrong gear can ruin a dive. Not just comfort-wise, but performance-wise. Beginners often skimp on essentials or buy whatever Instagram tells them to. Avoid it by trying gear before you buy, borrowing, or asking experienced divers for advice. Invest in fit, not hype. 7. Not Respecting Recovery Breathing You surface. You made it. You’re proud. But instead of doing a proper recovery breath, you smile, talk, high-five, and forget the one thing that actually keeps you from blacking out. Recovery breathing isn’t optional. It re-oxygenates your brain. It stabilizes your nervous system. It’s what lets you dive again. Avoid it by practicing recovery breathing until it becomes instinct. Inhale gently. Exhale slowly. Repeat at least three times. Don’t skip it. 8. Comparing Yourself to Others You know who dives 30 meters after three months? Someone who trains full-time, eats like a monk, and probably doesn’t have a day job. That’s not you. And that’s okay. Freediving isn’t a race. But beginners love to compare. They chase numbers, post stats, and forget that depth is personal. Your journey is yours. Celebrate the 10-meter dive if it felt right. Celebrate the 2-minute breath-hold if it was calm. You’re not here to beat anyone. Avoid it by remembering why you started. Let progress unfold naturally. Stay humble. Stay curious. Final Thoughts Freediving will humble you. It will frustrate you. It will change how you breathe, how you move, how you think. You will make mistakes. But if you approach it with patience, humility, and respect, it will also give you something rare: a way back to yourself. The ocean doesn’t care how deep you go. It cares how honest you are when you get there.
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23/04/2025
Freediving VS Scuba
I was 18 when I first went scuba diving. Somewhere off the coast of Cyprus, surrounded by that unnervingly calm Mediterranean blue, a dive instructor strapped a heavy tank to my back, plopped a regulator into my mouth, and gave me a thumbs up as we sank into the sea like stones. I remember thinking: This is it. I’m going to become a diver. One of those people who post GoPro selfies with turtles and call the ocean home. But something about it felt wrong. Not bad—just wrong. Like wearing someone else’s shoes. A bit too stiff. A bit too loud. A bit too... synthetic. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered freediving. And suddenly, the sea made sense. You and the Ocean, Unfiltered Scuba diving is like bringing your living room underwater. You’ve got your gadgets, your gauges, your redundancies. You breathe compressed air through a contraption strapped to your body. You manage your buoyancy with buttons. It’s an engineered experience. It’s safe, structured, and full of procedures. Freediving, on the other hand, strips all that away. It’s you, a pair of fins, and a single breath. There’s no noise except your own heartbeat. No bubbles clouding your vision. No gear buzzing or clicking or reminding you of its presence. Just silence. Stillness. Immersion. Scuba lets you observe the ocean. Freediving lets you become part of it. Depth vs. Duration People love to compare stats. How deep can you go? How long can you stay down? But the real difference between freediving and scuba isn’t just about the numbers. It’s about the experience. With scuba, depth is limited by decompression limits, air supply, and safety protocols. Sure, tech divers can go deep. But it comes with long deco stops, complex gas mixtures, and a bank account that takes a beating. Freedivers dive deep too—world records go beyond 100 meters—but on a single breath. And no, they’re not reckless. They train meticulously. They study physiology. They stretch. Meditate. They go deep not just into the water, but into themselves. The deeper you go, the quieter it gets. That’s the real depth. Gear: Simplicity vs. Machinery Scuba gear is impressive. Regulators, tanks, buoyancy compensators, dive computers, octopuses, weights. There’s a tool for every need. But with all that, comes complexity. More gear means more things to maintain, more things that can break, more time spent checking, adjusting, and calibrating. Freedivers keep it lean. Mask, snorkel, wetsuit, fins. Maybe a weight belt. That’s it. Travel becomes simpler. Set-up is faster. And let’s face it—there’s something freeing about being able to grab your gear and slip into the sea in less than five minutes. Breathing: Autonomy vs. Awareness Breathing on scuba is automated. You breathe in. The regulator gives you air. You breathe out. Bubbles rise. You don’t think about it much. But in freediving, breathing is everything. It’s intentional. Before a dive, you slow your breath. You soften your body. You prepare. The inhale isn’t just to fill your lungs—it’s to calm your mind. After surfacing, that first breath feels like life itself. It is life itself. Every freediver knows that feeling. That post-dive inhale, shaky and sweet, is the reward for surrendering to the deep and returning. The Noise Factor Ever noticed how noisy scuba is? Not just the hiss of air and the clink of gear, but the way it creates separation. Bubbles obscure your view. Regulators distort your voice. You become an outsider looking in. Freediving is silent. You glide. You slip. You merge. Fish don’t scatter as much. Dolphins sometimes approach. You’re not crashing the party; you’re already on the guest list. Safety and Risk Let’s not romanticize it: both freediving and scuba carry risk. Scuba divers face nitrogen narcosis, decompression sickness, equipment failure. Freedivers risk shallow water blackout, barotrauma, and hypoxia. But here’s the thing: both sports are safe when practiced properly. It’s not about the activity; it’s about the attitude. Are you trained? Are you following best practices? Are you diving within your limits? The ocean doesn’t discriminate. It demands respect in every form. The Afterglow After a scuba dive, you often feel satisfied. Tired, maybe. Hungry. You log your time and depth. Rinse your gear. It’s transactional. You had an adventure. After a freedive, you feel transformed. There’s a stillness that lingers. A clarity. It’s not just a sport. It’s a state of being. You touched something ancient, and it touched you back. So... Which One is Better? That’s the wrong question. Better for what? Scuba is for exploring wrecks, staying down longer, documenting ecosystems. It’s brilliant for science, research, and access. Freediving is for connection. With nature. With yourself. With silence. I still scuba now and then. There are places it takes me that I can’t reach on a breath-hold. But when I think of diving in the purest sense—of feeling small and infinite, of meeting the sea without barriers—it’s always freediving. Always.
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23/04/2025
Fish Are Running Out
Imagine standing on a pier, casting a line into the sea, and waiting. Hours pass. The waves lap gently against the concrete. The sun sets, yet your line remains still. No bites, no tension, nothing. It's not a bad day for fishing. It's a sign of something much deeper. In 1974, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that 90% of global fish stocks were being fished within biologically sustainable levels. By 2021, this figure had dropped to just 62.3%. That means nearly 40% of the world’s fish stocks are overfished—harvested at a rate that compromises their ability to replenish. Some species have vanished from certain waters altogether. What was once abundant is now elusive. This is not a future problem. It’s already here. We just haven’t felt the full weight of it yet. A History of Plenty For millennia, the sea seemed limitless. Generations of fishermen filled their boats without question. In coastal communities from Greece to Ghana, from Norway to New Zealand, fish were not just food. They were culture. Identity. Economy. Myth. But the industrialization of fishing changed everything. As sonar, satellite mapping, and supertrawlers entered the picture, the scale of extraction became unprecedented. A single trawler today can catch more fish in a week than an entire fleet could a century ago. Efficiency turned into overreach. By the late 20th century, warnings began to surface. Cod populations in the North Atlantic crashed. Sardine stocks in the Pacific dwindled. Tuna, particularly bluefin, became a luxury commodity. Yet global demand only grew. The Ecological Fallout Fish do more than feed us. They are the keystones of marine ecosystems. When they vanish, chains collapse. Overfishing disrupts food webs. Remove a predator like grouper, and its prey—often algae-grazing fish—flourish unchecked. Coral reefs, already under siege from warming waters and acidification, suffer further as algal overgrowth smothers them. Meanwhile, the mass removal of forage fish like anchovies and sardines deprives larger species of nourishment. Methods matter, too. Bottom trawling devastates seafloor habitats. Bycatch—the unintentional capture of non-target species—kills dolphins, turtles, sharks, and juvenile fish before they ever reproduce. And so, ecosystems unravel. Often silently. The Human Dimension Over 3 billion people depend on seafood for protein. In regions like Southeast Asia, West Africa, and the South Pacific, fish are not just dinner—they are economic lifelines. Women process and sell fish in markets. Children grow up casting nets. As stocks decline, competition intensifies. Coastal fishers find themselves pushed further out to sea, often risking their lives. Conflicts flare between artisanal and industrial fleets, and between countries. In West Africa, foreign trawlers—often from Europe and China—fish waters under questionable licenses, undermining local fishers. In places like the Philippines, families report fishing harder and longer for a fraction of the catch their grandparents once hauled. It is the poor who suffer most from the depletion of a public good. Climate: The Force Multiplier Climate change is not the root cause of fish stock decline, but it is gasoline on the fire. Warming waters shift fish populations poleward. Tropical fish migrate to cooler latitudes. In some regions, traditional fish disappear; in others, unfamiliar species arrive. For example, mackerel have moved into Icelandic waters in greater numbers, prompting geopolitical disputes over quotas. Ocean acidification, caused by increased CO2 absorption, affects shellfish and the food chains that support larger fish. Deoxygenation zones—dead areas in the ocean where fish cannot survive—are expanding. Extreme weather events damage fisheries infrastructure. Coral bleaching events remove critical nursery habitats. The interplay between climate and overfishing creates a perfect storm. Can Technology Help? There are tools. Satellite tracking can monitor illegal fishing. DNA barcoding helps detect seafood fraud. Aquaculture—fish farming—now provides more than 50% of seafood consumed globally. But aquaculture has its own environmental costs: pollution, disease transfer, reliance on wild-caught fish for feed. Technology must be part of the solution, but it cannot substitute for policy and enforcement. Policy and Politics The Common Fisheries Policy in the EU, NOAA's regulations in the US, and regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) all attempt to manage shared resources. But enforcement is spotty, especially on the high seas. Subsidies often prop up overcapacity. According to the World Trade Organization, over $22 billion annually goes toward harmful fishing subsidies that encourage overfishing. MPAs—Marine Protected Areas—are promising but underutilized. Only 8% of the ocean is protected, and enforcement within MPAs varies widely. Effective management requires cooperation, transparency, and long-term thinking—qualities often lacking in geopolitical negotiations. Cultural Reckonings In many cultures, fish are sacred. In Japan, Shinto rituals honor the spirits of fish. In the Mediterranean, generations have passed down the knowledge of spawning cycles and fishing seasons. Yet globalization has changed how we relate to seafood. Sushi, once a seasonal luxury, is now a 24/7 commodity in supermarkets from Toronto to Thessaloniki. Demand has outpaced ecological logic. Rebuilding a culture of respect for the sea means restoring not just fish, but wisdom. What Can Be Done? 1. Enforce science-based quotas. Management must follow biology, not economics or politics. 2. End harmful subsidies. Public money should not fund ecosystem destruction. 3. Expand and monitor MPAs. These must be well-designed and enforceable. 4. Improve transparency. Traceable supply chains can deter illegal and unsustainable practices. 5. Support local fishers. Empowering small-scale, community-managed fisheries often leads to better outcomes. 6. Change consumption habits. Eat lower on the food chain. Try lesser-known species. Eat local and seasonal. 7. Hold corporations accountable. Retailers and suppliers must commit to sustainability beyond certifications. Final Thoughts: A Reckoning with Abundance We once thought the sea was infinite. That was our first mistake. Our second was refusing to correct course when the signs became obvious. Now we face a choice. Will we continue to extract without thought, or will we treat the ocean as the living system it is? What we do in the next decade will determine whether our grandchildren inherit seas teeming with life or deserts of water. Recovery is possible. Fish stocks can rebound. But only if we listen, learn, and act—before the silence becomes irreversible. Sources: FAO, World Bank, MSC, UNEP, Ocean Conservancy, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Global Fishing Watch.
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23/04/2025
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