Task Force Dagger Special Operations Foundation prepares for the 2023 Dagger Dive June 24 – July 2 2023

 

What a worthy cause that all of us can support with the Task Force Dagger Special Operations Foundation "Dagger Dive"

Task Force Dagger Special Operations Foundation (TFDSOF) aids wounded, ill, or injured US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) members, veterans, and their families. TFDSOF responds to immediate needs, conducts Rehabilitative Adaptive Events (RAE), and provides next-generation health solutions for issues facing our service members.

As a veteran-operated nonprofit, TFDSOF understands the needs and experiences of the Special Operations Forces (SOF) community. Each program is designed to heal, rebuild, and strengthen the service member and their family by providing mission, purpose, and focus.

Dagger Dive is Task Force Dagger Special Operations Foundation’s (TFDSOF) longest-running and signature event. NAUI has been a key supporter of Dagger Dive and TFDSOF since the event’s inception over ten years ago!

Dagger Dive takes place each year in beautiful Key West, Florida where SOF service members, veterans, and their families are greeted with the incredible support of the members of the community who do so much to ensure the success of Dagger Dive!

TFDSOF sponsors activities that foster a sense of well-being, offer encouragement, and assist the service member’s rehabilitation and recovery from wounds/injuries sustained while serving our country and re-establishing the family bonds. One of our core beliefs is that if a service member is injured, the whole family is injured and must heal together.

Participating in an activity that requires focus, like diving, unites families and encourages them to work together towards a common goal. Diving is the medium that takes verbal out of the mix and creates a new way to communicate and reconnect.  Families participating in the Dagger Dive event spend multiple days learning how to dive before exploring the waters of Key West together. Training occurs each year at the US Army Special Forces – Special Forces Underwater Operations School in Trumbo Point Annex, Naval Air Station Key West. During the training, fifteen to twenty-five new NAUI Divers are certified, along with experienced divers completing refresher courses each year at Dagger Dive.

In 2023, TFDSOF will continue to support SOF service members, veterans, and their families with this unique RAE. Over 100 program participants and volunteers will be at this year’s event that takes place from June 24 – July 2! The week of learning, diving, and family-centric activities rebuilds the relationships between parents, children, and spouses, healing the whole family.

“Something unique to Dagger Dive and Task Force Dagger is that they address the family needs as well as the soldiers’ needs.”  Kristy Rooney (SOF Family Member)

After participating in Dagger Dive and becoming a certified NAUI Diver, many SOF members, veterans, and family members continue their diving journey with Task Force Dagger’s Joint Recovery Team, which NAUI also supports. The joint recovery missions in the Pacific Ocean, where TFDSOF supports Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) in research and aims to recover and repatriate our fallen service members from previous wars.  If you or someone you know is interested in more information about TFDSOF, please contact:  info@taskforcedagger.org

Shared from NAUI

What Is Freediving? The Perfect Way To Explore Underwater On A Single Breath

 

Freediving is breath-hold diving, being in and under the water while holding one’s breath.

Today, most people associate freediving with images of superhumans plunging to the ocean’s darkest depths with only the air in their lungs, the power of their bodies, and the will of their minds to keep them alive and bring them back.

However, every time you slip into the water and hold your breath, you are a freediver, exploring our world of water from the shallows to the depths. Read More

By Emma Farrell

Meet the Waterman of Tahiti

Red Bull December 31,2019
Surfer Matt Poole takes part in The Waterman: an all-round ocean based competition in Tahiti, French Polynesia.
At Teahupo'o, one of the craziest waves in the surfing community, there is yet another competition that takes place: an all-round ocean based race, Waterman Tahiti.
The Waterman Tahiti Tour is THE standard against which all other “waterman” competitions are measured. Stand up paddle (SUP), open water swimming, prone paddleboard, body surf and lifesaving highlight the versatility and endurance of the athletes. Each year, they train to be able to meet the different challenges and exceed their personal limits. The Waterman Tahiti Tour is a championship measured in points amassed over 5 stages.

How Diving Can Improve Your Surfing, with Mark Healey

Hawaiian waterman explains the benefits of descending beneath the surface

Surfline January 29, 2020

These days, the virtual world is nearly as tangible as the good ol’ fashioned terra firma. There it is, constantly in our pockets, awaiting our scrolls and likes and hashtags. But Oahu’s own Mark Healey lives in the real world, unplugged à la The Matrix. He’s in the sea – surfing, diving, and fishing. He’s on land – hunting wild boar. He’s in the air – or, rather, he’s breathing it in ways to help him in his pastimes above. He’s a man of the physical world in all its material forms; although his Instagram account is still a solid follow. Just sayin’.

And one of Healey’s favorite side hustles – outside of his main muse, surfing – is diving. He’s become a well-respected free diver and award-winning spear fisherman, which, in an era when simply packing a bomb at Pipeline or hucking air reverses on repeat has become blasé, is important. You need to be more than just a good surfer to be recognized. You need to be an eco-warrior or a musician or a mixed martial artist or (in Healey’s case) an all-around “waterman.” And, more importantly, it also helps to have something else to do when the waves go flat.

But the best part is, Healey’s hobbies help him when big swells do arrive. And diving in particular. So, for another edition of our ongoing series on cross-training, we picked Healey’s brain about what it’s like to go beneath the surface, and how it helps when he comes back to the lineup.

Ashley Chapman Sets Two New U.S. National Freediving Records

 

Ashley Futral Chapman (photo credit: Ren Chapman)

American Freediver Ashley Futral Chapman this past week set a pair of Women’s National Freediving Records in Roatan, Honduras.

Ashley set a new Constant Weight (CWT) with Bifins record under AIDA International rules on May 18th with a dive to 76 meters/249 feet, beating Enchante Gallardo’s 75-meter/246-foot dive from last month.

A few days later, Ashley set a CWT with monofin U.S. record with a dive to to 86 meters/282 feet.

Other records that have been set recently in Roatan include Richard Collett for his Cayman Islands men’s Constant Weight with Bi-fins national record dive to 55 meters/180 feet, and Sayuri Kinoshita for her Japan women’s national record dive of 85 meters/279 feet in the same discipline.

By John Liang, News Editor at DeeperBlue.com

For two Chesapeake Watermen, there’s just one way to harvest wild oysters: Dive for them.

Washington Post March 4, 2019

The day dawns bright and clear, with a biting freeze that clamps to any exposed skin within minutes outside. If it’s this cold on their dock in Wittman, Md., Nick Hargrove and Derek Wilson know it’s going to be even harder on the water, where water and tributaries might be frozen in some parts, and there’s a bay, wide and flat, that can welcome a weather change in minutes.

These oysters require no shucking knife. But the process has a catch.

It’s winter on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay — far from the white sails of recreational boating and sparkling water reflected in day-tripper sunglasses — and that means it’s oyster season for these two watermen of Wild Divers Oyster . The bay has a different tone this time of year, when it’s human against the elements, wind whipping across bows, and the two men, friends since sixth grade, don’t need many words to express their apprehension to the day ahead. That apprehension is part of the job, since Wilson must spend hours under the water, handpicking oysters from the bay’s murky bottom while Hargrove maneuvers the boat, monitors the cord that connects Wilson to it (and to air, light and warm water), and sorts oysters for the day’s haul.

They are watermen just like many in their community before them, but regulations, changing water quality and conditions, and the rise of aquaculture provide new challenges. The two men are building a decidedly modern business on the foundation of a traditional Chesapeake oyster plucked right from the bottom, and area chefs are beginning to notice.

The new shark deterrent wetsuit / Surfer Today

Well, I will leave it to the readers here to decide?  The new shark deterrent wetsuit: The world's first shark deterrent wetsuits have been unveiled by the University of Western Australia and Shark Attack Mitigation Systems.

Diversionary Tactics, Part One - Options for staying wet when surfing's not an option | SURFLINE.COM

You can't always surf.
Sometimes it's too small. Too weak or windy. Jellyfish or sea lice. Red tide or runoff. Restricted to surfboards or a 30-knot current ripping down the beach. Sometimes it's just straight-up flat. You can't always surf.

But you can always go surfing -- in your mind. You can drink the same coffee, jam the same pre-session song, call the same buddies and grab a paddle or a pole, a boogie or a rope, a kite or a pair of fins. Or just stretch your own God-given oars and channel all that potential energy and bottled surf stoke into something more kinetic -- something visceral and pointless and relaxing and invigorating and spiritual and
romantic and thrilling and sketchy and insane and hilarious all at the same time... just like surfing. Only it's not.

You can't always surf. But if you're up for it, you can always stay wet.

 More; DIVERSIONARY TACTICS, PART ONE | SURFLINE.COM

Man vs Gravity, One for the Ages - Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series 2013

85kph, aesthetic, gravity-defying freefall – cliff diving is the purest extreme sport on earth and has many centuries of tradition but has never been as youthful as it will be in 2013. The average age of 27.9 years is the youngest to date and it promises to be another year of rapid evolution of one of the most breathtaking of all sports. In its fifth season, the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series will hit new waters and determine a new champion during eight challenging competitions across Europe, Asia and North and South America.

Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series 2012 Azores - Orlando Duque

Between May and October ten of the world’s best cliff divers, from seven different countries, and up to four wildcard divers per stop will launch from 27 metres with no protection besides concentration, skill and physical control.

As the pinnacle of cliff diving competition, the 2013 World Series once again highlights the sport’s top athletes. After the most exciting season to date in 2012, in which the brilliant Brit, Gary Hunt, took a hat-trick of wins in the very last dive, beating comeback star Orlando Duque (COL) and American qualifier Steven LoBue, three rookies will spice up the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series in its fifth season. Rising star and youngest athlete, Jonathan Paredes (23), from Mexico, claimed his spot impressively in his second qualification attempt after 2012 with the highest overall score, Anatoliy Shabotenko, the impressive Ukrainian, made a big impact as a wildcard in 2012, as did newcomer Matt Cowen from Leeds, England.

The field of ten set divers consists of the top five from 2012 and the top five from the qualification competition in Australia earlier this year, and come from seven different countries with an age-range of between 23 and 38 years. The permanent participants will be added to with up to four wildcard divers per event who will be awarded points which will count towards the overall rankings and will therefore have a say in the final results.