Harry Webber is a qualified freedive instructor who is hoping to promote the sport as well as boost safety skills with his regular how-to sessions held at Mullumbimby pool.
Freediving is like advanced snorkelling where holding your breath is a key skill for taking longer and deeper dives.
The idea behind the meetings at the pool is to promote safety techniques and facilitate and promote a community of freedivers in the Byron Shire.
‘There hasn’t really been a unified freediving community in the area, so this is a great way to get people together, to create a group, so they can organise dive buddies,’ Harry said.
The sessions also provide the basics of breathwork as well as the safety procedures all dive buddies should be aware of.
‘Having a safety aware buddy close at hand can massively reduce any safety issues around freediving,’ Harry said.
‘We also teach divers to recognise the signals their bodies are giving them that indicate they are getting dangerously low on oxygen, before their body reacts by blacking out.
‘Even a small change in a diver’s state of being, say extra fatigue, can have a big impact on their performance underwater.
‘Dive buddies also need to be able to recognise these signals as well’, he said.
The freediving pool sessions carry a $20 fee for the first induction and then any following sessions undertaken are by donation.
Professional courses can be expensive and time consuming, so the pool sessions are focussed on making the safety know-how of freediving more accessible.
The session are on Thursday afternoons at Mullumbimby Pool from 5.00pm. After this Thursday 19th of December, there is a break until they resume on the 9th of January. Contact: [email protected]
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