Day 4 of the 2024 321FREEDIVE Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida featured panel discussions on shark diving and women in freediving as well as workshops on doing safety for cliff diving competitions plus finding freediving locations off the beaten path, freediving and conservation and more.
Nick Fazah of the Boston Sea Rovers started the day off with a talk about how he leads the team of safety divers for the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series and the procedures they use.
Rachel Novak followed that with a talk about her efforts to find freediving spots in lakes and rivers across the USA, along with how to safely hike to those locations.
Snake scientist Rosie Moore spoke about using social media to further conservation efforts and dispel inaccuracies and biases about certain animals, including snakes and sharks.
Hollywood stuntwoman Liz Parkinson gave a talk about her career as a stunt double and trainer on movies and TV shows like Netflix’s “Thai Cave Rescue,” DisneyPlus’s “Star Wars: Ahsoka,” “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
Following those talks, Shivani Goberdhan moderated a poolside panel on the risks and rewards of diving with sharks with Samudra Flow founder Allie Reilly, Parkinson and Moore.
After that, Goberdhan moderated a panel on the past, present and future of women in freediving that featured DeeperBlue.com’s own Editor-At-Large Franceska Koe, US freediving national record holder Enchante Gallardo, Allie Reilly, USA Spearfishing Team Member Susan Pauer, freediving competition medic Leigh Baker, Liz Parkinson and Rachel Novak.
Additionally, during the morning Fazah also conducted a training workshop in the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center’s dive pool on high dive rescues, the folks at Deep End Fitness held another session of the techniques they use to train top athletes and another in-pool freediving rescue session took place.
Finally, 321FREEDIVE Conference founder Jennifer Morgan gave closing remarks in which she announced that planning for the 2025 conference was well underway.