Freediving and Spearfishing in Portroe

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FREEDIVING AND SPEARFISHING IN PORTROE IRELAND

Last weekend (13-14 June) was a freediving and spearfishing workshop in Portroe. And we have the presence of experts freedivers and spearfishers. The goal was offer an orientation to all freedivers and spearfishers, every level and experience. Not a course, just to introduce and advance in that disciplines.

Portroe Dive Centre
Portroe Dive Centre

Freediving had pavol Ivanov and Peter Wydmuch as experts. They took advanced and initiation freedivers. In spearfishing, Juan Lopez offered all his experience.

Portroe is an artificial lake. With a max 40m deep it´s a perfect place to train freediving. In Ireland the coast is shallow and it´s hard to find places where we can go deep. But here, in Portroe, there is no current and we have different deeps.

Pavol Ivanov and his group
Pavol Ivanov and his group

There is a platform where we can use two lines (we can have different lengths) and there are more things to enjoy: an underwater pub, a mirror, two cars and a lot of big rocks and beautiful places. The worst thing is the temperature, usually low (except in summer) but we are in Ireland!

Platform
Platform

The day starts setting up the gazebos to offer a god place to give the talks, warming ups and show spearfishing and freediving gear. SubandCast bring us a lot of equipment: wetsuits, fins, spearguns, rubbers and all type of complements.

2- Preparando-gazebos

Once finished the advanced group start their work. Pavol talks around one hour, and after that, they will go into the water. This first day is about relaxing exercises and increase apnea.

While they are going into the water Peter starts with the initiation group giving the basis.

Peter explaining breathing techniques
Peter explaining breathing techniques

The time in the water is a bit more than an hour. All the freedivers are doing short dives, preparing for the afternoon class.

6--Preparando-picada

And a bit later go into the water Peter and his group. He set up a freediving buoy in a shallow place. His pupils are novel freedivers and it´s remarkable that they got more than 10m (some of them around 14m)

11--iniciación-en-el-agua

We make a small break up and some of the guys go to have a coffee. But the advanced group don´t waste time and start again with theory. Pavol will explain breathing exercises to be well prepared for the dives. A good warm up and be better in the water.

10--iniciación-bajando

After done it, it´s time to start again in the water. The goal is not deep dives. It´s just use the exercises and do slow dives, not deep, using our arms. Just to relax ourselves and increase our apnea. After some dives we could feel that it works.

15--Ed-bajando

The water temperature is low and we start having problem in our sinuses. So we decided finish the day. It was a great day.

Now is time to recover energy. And there is nothing better than a beer and good food.

12--cena

We pass the night in a B&B close to Portroe. We offered us a room to hang our wetsuits. The next day will be dry. Personally I hate put on a wet and cold wetsuit.

The breakfast is an Irsih full breakfast: sausages, bacon, eggs, potato, black and white pudding, toast, butter, marmalade… And a big black coffee too.

At nine there are people at Portroe so here we go.

13--yendo-a-la-plataforma

Setting up everything again and we are ready. Today is not an initiation group. We will try deeper dives looking for personal bests. And the other part of the day will be to spearfishing. We will try different spearguns with targets (bottles), how to move ourselves at the bottom and more techniques.

14--colocando-la-plataforma

Freediving group starts with warm up and theory.  After that they are prepared to go to the water. After one hour and a half here we go.

We start doing a few dives. Not deep. Just dive a few meters, stay there and go up slowly. After that warm up we put the line deeper. 20m, 25m, 27m… With the lanyard and experts by your side make us feel safe.  And now Ed wants to go deeper. He is going to have his personal best. Will be 38m, and with this temperature is a great deep.

16--ed-superficie

But the best is that we are enjoying a lot this weekend.

After one more hour we decide to conclude the freediving day. Resting a few minutes and starting again with spearfishing.

SubandCast bring a lot of stuff
SubandCast bring a lot of stuff

And now is Juan´s time. Start with theory, explaining the bases. Spearfishing and freediving differences, wetsuits, spearguns, rubbers, fins, techinques, risks and safety…. A couple of hours are not too much so we are talking about most important things.

18--hablando-de-pescasub

And after the theory we go to the practice.

22--picando-detrás-de-flores

Maybe is funny doing spearfishing in a lake without fish. But can be very good. We can see how to move into the water, how to make waits, looking for fish and how to go close to it, look into holes, Noises to attract the fish, shooting…

23--moviéndose-y-apuntando

We used different spearguns: aluminium roller (IlRoller) carbon roller (CKV FFSub Triton) and a parallel rubbers (CKV FFSub Kraken) We could see differences between them. Different setting ups, shafts (spears) And how to improve our accuracy and shot position.

ILRoller alluminium roller
ILRoller alluminium roller

21--apuntando-ckv

20--apuntando

The cold was increasing we decided finish the day.

18--picando-pesca-submarina

Was a great weekend, very funny and very good buddies. Thank you to all of you!

And we hope see you very soon.

If anyone is interested in:

Don´t hesitate to contact us. We will offer specific courses, exactly what you need. Doesn´t matter if you are starting up or want to improve your skills.

You can contact us in:

www.subandcast.com

xoanlc@gmail.com

And See you next time!

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