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Sheena McNally, Canada's deepest woman, is currently in the Bahamas, training to compete at Vertical Blue in a few weeks' time. Since this is her first time out there, she was taken aback by the darkness of Dean's Blue Hole, as she is used to diving at places with great visibility. The thing is, we're freedivers. We're already plunging into places where we have no business being, and most of us don't feel very "afraid" about such things. Instead, we are focused on trying to find solutions to go deeper into it. Here's what she came up with in order to deal with the lack of light when freediving deep.
"After spending two months training in the bright blue waters of Roatan, Honduras, the infamous Dean's Blue Hole in Long Island, Bahamas, was a bit of a shock. The big difference? It's dark and sometimes murky! While visibility in Roatan was often approaching 40m, visibility in the Blue Hole seems to vary from about 12m-20m, depending on weather conditions, time of day, and tidal flow. As you get deeper, the darkness creeps in...a feature that's fairly inconvenient for divers who freefall by following the line visually! From what I've witnessed and experienced, there seem to be a few different solutions to deal with the darkness, depending on how you choose to freefall, and how much equipment you're comfortable with.
There is light down there, and if you keep your face close to the line, you can generally see it. If you're a diver who wears fluid goggles or a mask, the depth at which you can comfortably see the line increases by quite a few meters. Depending on how deep you're planning to dive into the darkness, adding some facial equipment might be the solution. However, some of us are uncomfortable with goggles/masks, so the next easiest option is...
You've probably seen the videos from the last edition of Vertical Blue--many divers chose to mount small dive lights on the hoods of their wetsuits. After two sessions, I did the same, and for me, this is the simplest and quickest way to address the issue. The small lights definitely don't illuminate everything, but they do provide a little round point of light on the dive line which serves as a visual reference. I've come to enjoy diving with this little dot of flickering light as my focal point, as well as watching the background fade away in my peripheral vision. The problem with adding a light, though, is that it's equipment, and we're humans--the more equipment, the more chances that we can make a mistake (in this case, forgetting to turn on the light). Oops!
This is perhaps the most elegant solution, but it's one that (in my experience) takes time to get comfortable with. Some divers choose to remain in contact with the line, which allows them to close their eyes and relax completely. Common methods include keeping the fingers of one hand looped gently around the line, or perhaps one or two fingers gently brushing it (sometimes with the shoulder as a second contact point), but I've also met divers who keep their face so close to the line that it occasionally brushes it (I'd be worried about losing my noseclip!). The benefits of this method are that the diver can relax completely, close their eyes, and not worry about visual information. The drawbacks are that it takes time to perfect and that it can slow the descent (friction from contact with the line).
A final method I've witnessed is for the diver to hold the carabiner of his/her lanyard, and "ride" it (rather than being in contact with the line). This seems a little faster than contacting the dive line directly with one's body, but a little trickier to get a sense of orientation since you don't have as much tactile feedback. Again, this method seems awesome as, when perfected, the diver can completely relax and not rely on visual information, but I think it takes time to get comfortable with.
For me, the weeks leading up to the competition are not a great time to try a lot of drastic changes in the way that I dive, so the small torch was the quickest and most comfortable solution. For divers with more time to experiment, I think learning non-visual methods of freefalling could be very relaxing and practical"!