Diver base jumps largest underwater sinkhole

If you are standing on the edge of a dark underwater abyss, would you jump? World champion freediver Guillaume Nery hesitated only long enough to strike some poses, before jumping head first into Bahama's 663 foot Dean's Blue Hole. Watch the dramatic video below.

Guillanume appears to be using a small oxygen tank here or is he? Is it possible to free dive that far? Pardon my ignorance but wouldn't you get the bends coming up from so deep quickly? Regardless, cool video.

Source:
Watch: Diver base jumps largest underwater sinkhole | KING5.com | Seattle News and Video

 

I think you are right you would get the bends from diving so deep. I didn't see him expell any air till the very top. But it is a cool video.

 

That was pretty trippy! Be a real bad day if you misjudged and missed the hole though.

How deep is the actual hole? I can't remember what those Hawaiian divers dive for..some kind of mollusk or clam..scallon? IDK but they dive to nearly 100 feet w/o air and come right back up.

 

that is so scary i could never do that

 

The film was shot over 4 days and multiple dives. He never reached the bottom, it's not physically possible as a free dive as it's about 300ft deeper than the record free dive. (watched a video with the diver in the film stating this yesterday, he and the cameraman were trying to combine their love of base jumping with free diving in an artistic manner)

The bends are not an issue with free diving because the only air you breath is whatever is in your lungs when you dive in, it compresses as you go deeper and then expands back to original volume as you surface unlike scuba where you breath pressurized gas at depth that must be allowed to expand and escape the body as you surface or the nitrogen in the blood will form painful bubbles usually in the joints as the body depressurizes. (the bends)
If you take scuba lessons this is usually shown by having you take a tennis ball to 80ft to see it crush flat and then returning it to the surface where it becomes a tennis ball again as the air in it expands.
The other demonstration is to turn a glass or jug upside down trapping a volume of air in it, taking that to the bottom and seeing how much the air compresses and watch it return to the original volume as you rise back to the surface.
The whole object of the exercises is to convince you not to ever hold your breath as a scuba diver or you will blow up like a balloon as you surface and likely suffer a very debilitating bout of the bends

 

Uggggh Telgar beat me to it

Snorkelers and freedivers can not get the bends. Because what you breath in at the surface stays with you the whole dive. Meanwhile with scuba divers, you could be at 60 feet, but because of the pressurized air your lungs are around the same volume as they would be on the surface, except in theory they would quadruple in size at surface level because of water pressure being less and less as you go shallower.

One of the biggest rules of diving is to never hold your breath.

But this was a really cool video

 

Thanks guys. Good to know. That makes a bit of sense after the explanations. I agree - it is still cool and I look forward to his next one.

 

Pretty cool video.

 

Ummm... read the description.

This video is a FICTION and an ARTISTIC PROJECT. Edited by BLUENERY (c). Music: ARCHIVE - you make me feel.