I grew up in Hawaii and freediving has always gone hand-in-hand with spearfishing, not the other way around.
Usually, ahi and ulua are the rewards of kicking out from Diamondhead trailing a float (or five), a dive flag, and a really long nylon line.
Why would a diver in Hawaii just plunge into blue water without the chance of bringing back a fish?
Just ulua and ahi? No way, also ono, swordfish, and marlin!
I have a feeling that the gang from Divester, in their article Combining Spearfishing and Freediving Into One Sport, got this all wrong.
The sport of freediving spawned from openwater, breath-holding, fishing!
Check out two great books, Bluewater Hunting & Freediving by Terry Maas and Last of the Blue Water Hunters by Carlos Eyles
If you’re interested in Freediving, I can personally recommend the Manual of Freediving: Underwater on a Single Breath by Umberto Pelizzari, Stefano Tovaglieri.
Actually, one of my favorite freediving books is Freedive!, also by Terry Maas. A must buy.
In Hawaii I routinely would kick out from the Outrigger Canoe Club with just a float, a dive flad, a 125-foot nylon line, and my Nikonos.
A pair of trunks, a low-displacement mask, a snorkel, and a pair of closed heal freediving fins.
Of course, since I didn’t buddy dive, I also risked shallow water blackout, collision with a tourboat, and ultimate drowning.
Blackouts are no fun, “blackout is the sudden loss of consciousness caused by oxygen starvation. Divers can experience two types of blackout. Shallow-water blackout occurs when divers ascending vertically in the water column undergo pressure changes.”
But at that point I was young and invincible. I am no longer young.
At the height my training and hubris, I would kick out to a wreck down at 100-feet I used to go to as a PADI Divemaster SCUBA diving, then blow the divers’ minds by doing a little meditation, some hyperventilation, and a breath hold, and down I kicked to the scubadivers blowing bubbles. I would quietly sidle up to one of my friends, an instructor or dive master, and smile. Unlike the divers, I wore only a pair of swim trunks, a mask, snorkel, and a pair of really big fins.
You could see me smiling.
