Tom Lightfoot's Home Site

Earlier in September I had a chance to dive with Peter Scott and check out his new Dol-fin. It is basically a monofin with a high aspect ratio blade. Interestingly, the blade has much the same dimensions as the power blade of my Aqueon. However, unlike the Aqueon, it is very light in weight and low in drag. I think the Aqueon has more power though.

Peter's Dol-fin is a prototype, built by someone in Arizona. So, sorry, you can't buy one yet and I don't have a link to the inventor/manufacturer.

Have a look at the video below to see the Dol-fin in action:

I've made a third video of my experiences with the Aqueon. This one is about constant ballast diving on a line.

After diving the Ogden Point breakwater, I stayed on in Victoria to visit with my friend Tony. Tony and I go back a long way, having met in university. While Tony and I were in university, his father built a boat and decided to sail around the world with it. Tony's parents made it almost all the way but stalled at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Something about the easy lifestyle and cheap bear...

I've been going through my underwater photos on the site and have classified them by the major species represented. You can find all of these tagged photos sorted by taxonomy on the new Creatures page. It's a good way to get to know your underwater creatures by their latin names.

Let me know if I've got anything wrong.

On July 26, several members of the Vancouver Apneist Club took the 7:00 am ferry to Victoria to dive the Ogden Point breakwater. There we were joined by several other divers from Victoria and Saltspring Island. In all, we had 16 freedivers in the water, It was the biggest turnout for a freediving event that we've had in years.

I had the Aqueon in the water for the second time on March 1. I knew this time to keep the kick tighter and to rely mostly on the backwards surface dive. I was much more comfortable with it this time and spent some time zipping around on the surface and seeing how far I could launch myself out of the water with it.

Below is a video from that day's experience:

I took my Aqueon for a dive at Porteau Cove on February 23, just a few days after receiving it via courier. I was very excited to be using it for the first time but there were a number of things that I had to relearn:

The Aqueon is a swim fin unlike any other that you will see. Unlike monofins or bifins which mount on and extend the feet, the Aqueon is mounted on the lower legs. The swimming blades are actually forward of the mounting point, moving up and down below the wearer's navel. This device was invented in the early 1970s by Calvin Gongwer of Innerspace Thrusters.

On the weekend of March 14 to 16, my friends Dan, Bert and I went on a Sigges weekend trip to Silver Star Resort. We all went without our respective wives and girlfriends so Bert called our group The Boys of the Dwarf after the guys on the British science fiction show Red Dwarf. The conditions were great and we skied at lest 60 km that weekend.