Your Safety Freediver course will cover topics such as:
- Safety and Buddy Procedures for Advanced Freediving
- Equipment for performing safety beyond 40m/132’ such as lanyards and counterbalance systems
- Psychological Aspects of handling emergency situations
- Basic Life Support Training: Complete BLS for adults, children, and infants, including two person CPR, use of a bag valve mask, suction, oxygen provider for injured divers, neurological assessment, hazardous marine life injuries
- Mastering the roles of primary and secondary safety freedivers
- Learning to manage active and passive freediver retrieval system set-up and use
Is this course for you?
- You’re an experienced comfortable freediver and have completed the PFI Intermediate Freediver course
- You’ve completed an Intermediate Freediver level course with another recognized agency PLUS have completed the PFI Freediver Crossover Exam
- You’re interested in a program with a high level of focus on safety
- You want to become a professional level freediver
Format/Duration
This course is taught by highly trained PFI Instructors at locations all over the world. The PFI Intermediate Freediver course includes, at a minimum:
- Classroom Sessions
- Confined Water sessions
- Open Water sessions
- The schedule and layout/order of these sessions vary slightly by location. The program is typically run over 2 days. Click the link on any particular course to find the exact schedule for that program
What can I expect to learn?
Some of the skills a student will be able to perform at the end of the PFI Intermediate Freediver course are:
- Working in a safety team
- Adequate safe buddy skills, performing a rescue to PFI standards
- Prepare gear without help of instructor
- Safety freedivers in confined and open water situations
Prerequisites
- PFI Intermediate Freediver certification or equivalent with PFI Crossover Exam
- You’re comfortable with intermediate level freediving depths, anywhere from 25–40m/82–132 ft
- You have a static breath-hold time of three minutes or longer
- Good health and fitness—check the PFI Medical Form
- 16 years of age with guardian permission
Course Components
Classroom
- Learn the techniques philosophies of safety for depths that push human limits
- Attend all classroom teaching sessions
- Complete all quizzes in manual
- Complete pre learning quiz before class
- Pass final with 80 percent or more
- First Aid, CPR, O2 Provider, Neuro, and Marine Life Injuries certification
Watermanship & Stamina
- Prepare freediving equipment without instructor assistance
- Proper entry procedure (select best local option)
- 200-meter continuous swim without fins, snorkel, wetsuit, or flotation
- Minimum of ten-minute tread
Confined Water
- Recovery breathing and coaching
- Manage LMC, blackout on surface and underwater – identifying telltale signs that a problem is about to occur, then demonstrate how to handle the situation safely, effectively, and efficiently
- Finding blackout diver on surface
- Demonstrate how to identify and respond to an active and passive panicked drowning persons
- Demonstrate how to remove an injured person from the water
Open Water
- Recovery breathing and coaching for buddy
- Emergency rescue and problem management (rescue scenarios), surface and underwater individually and in a team setting
- Including LMC, blackout at surface and underwater
- Act as primary, secondary, on-deck, clutch, and timekeeper in deep recreational, training, and competition situations.
- Perform hands on rescue scenarios for dives up to 60m/197feet as a team
Equipment Used:
- Low Volume Mask
- Snorkel
- Full Hooded Wetsuit (3mm for warm water locations; 5-7mm for cold water locations)
- Rubber weight belt and weights in .5-1Kg/1-2lb increments
- Freediving bi-fins
- Freediving computer plus an additional waterproof timing device
- Lanyard—suggested but not required
How to take this course!
- Find your local PFI Dive Center: Click here!
- Find your local PFI Instructor: Click here!
