Today saw the Kiwi's out in force.
All of us attempting a dive of some description.
Kathryn was up first. Further extending her grasp of the Constant Weight without fins discipline.
Kathryn had a very pleasant dive to 44m resetting her NZ Record just set the previous day.
She never looked like she was struggling during any part of the visible sections of the dive.
Next up was Me. I had nominated a 73m free immersion. The thinking around this was that if I can pass the 60+m mark, I might as well keep on diving. I had discussed at length the dive plan with Fran and Joy, therefore it was just a case of sticking to the plan and seeing how it all went.
Also, this was to be my second ever FI dive, so it was always going to be a long shot.
Breathup was good, focus good, so at the surface everything was going to plan.
I stopped pulling down at 30m but was still too buoyant, therefore my descent slowed. I started to pull down the line more, but by this stage I was already behind in my planed dive.
I got to 58m where I needed to stop myself briefly in order to sort out my Eq and thats when the trouble begun. I had taken too long to get to depth and as a result, unknown to me, Narcosis was on its way to get me. Until this point in time I had only heard the stories of Narcosis so I was unsure as to what was happening. Its a strange feeling to describe, but was like being drunk but at the same time, outside of your body. I was still descending slowly, looking around all the time, forgetting all about equalizing. I finally stopped myself at 62m and 13 seconds after being there realized that I needed to get control and head up. I pulled my way to the surface and completed SP. yellow card, narced off my tree. After that I headed to shore to suck on some O2.
Williams World Record attempt was next, so I needed to get back into the water as his nominated coach. I swum with him over to the platform and assisted him to get ready. He got into the water 8 mins out from his dive and then I positioned him on the rope and helped keep his head up out of the water to allow him to relax. He had announced 84m and the current world record was 83m.
A 10 seconds after top time, he rolled over and begin the attempt. His speed down the line was nice and consistent as recorded on the sonar. We saw the turn then up he came. Just as he broke the surface I put his support ring next to him and yelled "Breath Will".."Breath".. "Noseclip".. "Goggles" .."Signal" and he was done! A new World Record!!!!
During the attention Will was receiving Dave was working on his focus ready for a 108m dive.
His breath up looked "Dave Calm" and then he was off. From the surface everything looked cool.
Then we lost him on the sonar at 50m. The judges and officials kept calling the time, but there were some nervous looks being passed around. approx 2 mins past and then he appeared on the sonar again at 50m on the ascent. He was slow but coming up. It seemed to take an age for him to get from 20m to 10 m, but finally he was in sight. Then he surfaced. About 8 seconds after surfacing he started to samba which lasted for about 10 seconds. He completed Surface protocol at 28 seconds. Too late therefore he got a Red Card and the dive was disqualified.
I swum with him to shore to keep an eye on him at the medic's (Joy's) request and got him on O2 as soon as possible.
A mixed bag today and one to learn from. 2 new National (NZ) records, one of which is now a World Record.
As for me, I am going back a few steps in my quest to get deeper. Tomorrow is a rest day, so I will work on a new dive plan and tackle the 65m mark.
Stay tuned!
