Free Diving

Below are only a few of the reasons I don't try to free dive the reefs off Daytona. 

Please check back from time to time and see if your comments help me to change my opinion.

• Shallow Water Blackout      SWB       What else needs said.

• The television shows about the free divers always show someone who needs to be revived by medical personnel. 

• Five to ten foot vis.

• 100+ foot deep

• Thirty miles from any help.

• I don't want to risk getting hurt, I just want to put some fish on the table.

•  One man died in Palm Beach last year free diving, commercial spearfishing was what I heard at the dock. I do not know the details, but will find them soon. I saved the newspaper article from the Palm Beach newspaper.

July 8, 2001

MIAMI (AP) A 28-year-old man was killed in a free diving accident at Biscayne National Park Saturday.
  
Authorities say he was found unconscious in 75 feet of water by friends after diving near the park's Ajax Reef.

The diver, whose name was not released, was taken to Adams Key where emergency technicians tried to resuscitate him.

He was pronounced dead at Baptist Hospital. 

July 8, 2001

Bahia Honda State Park (WSVN) A bizarre fishing accident left one South Florida teen dead.
 
Sixteen year-old Steven Jones was spearfishing with a friend 6 miles south of Bahia Honda Key yesterday, when something went horribly wrong.

The teen got tangled in a fishing line, after spearing a fish underwater.

His friend, dove in to help, after noticing the teen's lifeless body in the water.

Coast guard crews finally arrived on scene... cutting the teen's body free.
  
Crews administered CPR, but the boy was pronounced dead moments later.

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moose@seahunters.com