Tough Day

Not too much to report about yesterday. Only Kathryn dived.

She was attempting to dive to 50m. She looked good from the surface and looked good on the way up, but unfortunately for her, she blacked out on the surface and got a red card.


Today (6th April) only I nominated to dive. I set the depth to 64m which I was hoping would be an easy dive for me today. Unfortunately about 4 mins from my dive, I did a test eq. on my ears and the left ear gave me a serious pain. I tried again and it did not hurt as much. I was close to pulling out of the dive, but tried one more Eq and it did not hurt at all so I decided to stick with the plan.

I did the dive, but it was difficult as I was worried about my ears the whole way down and could not relax as I needed to in order to make a good dive.
I got to 62 (again) and turned as I did not want to hurt myself any further.
Coming to the surface I was somewhat disorientated and was spiraling around the rope.
My kick also lost it tempo due to my head not being where it needed to be.
I surfaced and competed Sp. yellow card for turning early.

If the ear is ok I will try again for that depth as I should be able to get 64m.

Better luck tomorrow.

We are off to a BBQ for the competitors this afternoon so it will be a good time to chill with the other athletes and organizers. I am tired and need sleep too. I think this means I will sleep well tonight despite the heat.

What A Day!!

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!

3rd April - Day 3 of Comp

Tough Day in the Office

Well, today was a tough day. I had nominated a 66m cwt dive. Feeling I was ready to break the 60m depths I have been diving to.

The day started with Ryuzo Diving Constant Weight 100m which was awesome. Breaking his record 2 days in a row! Ryuzo has constantly impressed me as an athlete as well as being a very very nice guy to talk to and learn from.

Kathryn broke her own record again. She is consistently pushing and getting the results. She is doing really well at Deans.

I was the next Kiwi in the line up. I was running a little behind getting to the platform and therefore rushed my prep a little, but by the time I was on the line I was totally in the zone.
I was feeling really relaxed and almost falling asleep!
I bought myself back into focus packed and dived.
It was a really good entry and felt nice on the way down. Freefall was awesome.
At around 58m I lost my mouthfull again! I flared out my arms out to slow my descent so I could bring up another mouthfull of air, but each time I reverse packed I could not hold it. Also as you can not hold the rope, I was still sinking so not being able to eq. the pressure was still coming on my ears. I got to 60.9 and decided that I needed to head up, because the mouthfill was not working. I headed up. 3 massive kicks then settle down to the rhythm that I have adopted for ascent. Its a nice relaxed kick which is continuous. I have found it to be the most energy efficient for me. I came up, surfaced and did a nice clean surface protocol.
Once I was cleared from the line, I checked my dive computer. I had spent 10 seconds at 60m trying to Eq! It just goes to show that I am now really comfortable at that depth where as before I would get down there and the first thing I wanted to do was return to the surface. This bodes well for deeper dives to come.

Tomorrow is another day. One more dive, then I will take a rest day as I would have dived 4 days in a row. The sled will be ready soon for me to make my first official attack on the Variable Weight Discipline.

2 NZ records - and many more to come!

Today we saw another great dive by Kathryn who broke her own NZ record with a Constant Weight No fins dive of 41m and Big Dave Mullins pulled out a Big dive today - also breaking his own Constant Weight record - taking it to 108m. Both came up clean, however Dave did experience Narcosis - and was quite the joker because of it!

Both Kerian and William had good dives, however they both turned early - Kerian nominated 66m CWT and turned at 60.9m, and William ( pictured above during his warm up prior to his dive) nominated 101m FIM and turned at 97m - so these are still good dives - and Kerians PB in CWT.

Tomorrow we have more big dives ahead of us, Will has nominated 84m CNF - which will reclaim the world record he set last year, but which was later broken in October, Dave has nominated 111m CWT - pushing the NZ record out even further, Kathryn is going to dive without a wetsuit tomorrow , and is hoping for a 44m dive, with kerian attempting FIM at 73m - so it should be an exciting day ahead of us - and we are hoping for more good weather, rather than a return of the tropical storm we have had in the last few days!

Official results are being posted at http://verticalblue.net/news/

Thunder Stoms and Lightening

Well, Day 2 of the comp and the gods have decided that the water is too shallow here.

We have been experiencing thunder storms on and off over the last few days and heavy rain. They are tropical storms though, which just roll in, do their thing then disappear again as quickly as they arrive.

Day 2 of the comp only saw 4 competitors diving due to 2 athletes pulling out before the day begun.

First up was Natalie with 62m CWT. She did a nice clean dive and got white cards all around.

I was second with a nominated 60m CWT. I entered the water as late as possible to stop from getting cold. I did my lung stretches on the dive platform while Natalie was doing her dive.
I entered the water 5 mins from my set dive time and prepared.
Everything was going well and at 10 seconds after top I begun my dive.
It was feeling great as I went off the surface, couple of big kicks and close my eyes to enjoy the descent. All of a sudden I was whipped around, my lanyard had caught on something! I was now head up and needed to abort the dive. I looked up my lanyard line and it was caught on the carabina which they send the tags down on. The tag was still attached too! I swum up and grabbed the tag and carabina and returned to the surface. I was so angry! I think it was a reaction to being turned around suddenly and unexpectedly.
Needless to say, that dive was an aborted effort, so I was asked by the officials if I would like another go after the last athlete. I elected to dive again.

At that stage there was only William Winran and Christian to dive.
William was attempting a 90m FIM dive which he did not make and turned early at 70m.
Christian nominated 62m and got the tag - and also the French National Record!

Now it was my second attempt for the day.
Breath up was good and I started the dive head up this time.
Descent was nice and I managed to relax into the free fall. My dive alarm went off and I did my mouth fill and continued to equalize easy. Once my second alarm went off, I knew I was only 3m from the plate, so I dropped without worrying to Equalise.
At this stage I overshot the plate, so as I turned, I swum up to look over the plate, get my tag and keep on swimming up. Seemed like a very small swim to the deep safety diver. I removed my nose clip and kept swimming. Ran my hands up the rope to clear the surface and then complete Surface Protocol. White Card.

No lactic, no issues, just a great dive.

I have now completed my deepest CWT dive in comp. I have nominated something deeper for tomorrow, so keep tuned! Same bat time, same bat channel!

Afterwards Joy, Simon, Kathryn, Fran and myself took off to a beach I had been told about. We went for a wonderful swim. Not much to see other than perfect white sandy beaches.
Most amazing church there too which I took pictures of.
We had a nice lunch in Clarance Town.
Came back and ended up at the Cyber Cafe.

And it begins

Today was Day 1 of comp. No more time to train.

As I had dived the last 4 days in a row I chose to not dive today.
William asked me if I would help out as surface safety on the warm up line.

As a result I missed out on seeing the other athletes performances, but thats no issue as it was very interesting to see how the other elite free divers set themselves up for their dives.

Ryuzo and Tomoko are the cutest couple during their warm up. They talk softly and Ryuzo joins in the breathing when preparing Tomoko for her dive.

I had no issues with Samba's or blackouts to deal with, so other than the current, it was a very easy day.

A list of who is competing:

New Zealand
Dave Mullins
Kathryn McPhee
Kerian Hibbs
William Trubridge

Japan
Ryuzo Shinomiya
Tomoko Yamanouchi
Megumi Matsumoto

France
Guillaume Nery
Christian Maldame

Canada
William Winram
Eric Fattah

Russia
Natalia Avseenko

Columbia
Frank Pernett

Brazil
Karol Meyer

Athletes results (Unoffical)

Ryuzo - 95m CWT- White Card
Guillaume - 69m CWT- Yellow Card (No Tag)
Christian - 57m CNF- Red Card (Technicalities)
Natalie - 57m FIM- White Card
Megumi - 54m FIM - Yellow Card (No Tag)
Karol - 57m FIM - Red Card (BO)
Kathryn - 57m FIM - White Card (National Record)
Tomoko - 52m CWT - White Card (Pb)
Frank - 38m CNF - Red Card (Airway)

Last Training Day.

Well, today they needed a volunteer to test the counter balance retrieval system. I was very quick to put my hand up for that. I need to experience the depths that I will be diving to in Constant Weight so I was first with my hand up.

I elected to dive to 70m, my deepest ever dive so that they had decent depth to gauge the retrevial from. Due to the nature of me being pulled down then pulled back up again, its now considered a "No Limits" dive.

It was also a chance for William to test the bottom camera and luck me then full dive to be recorded.

I did my stretches and breath up, secured my lanyard to the line and it was time to go.

William let the cleat go and I was off. Again, I found it a very easy dive to that depth and no issue to Equalize at all! Got to the bottom, then hung myself below the plate for the ride up. What a rush!
I came to the surface and did my safety protocol. No limits is too easy!

After that I went through my deep safety checks with Grant in order to make sure that we are up to speed with deep rescue.

Tomorrow is the first day of comp and I am having a rest day. (As is William Trubridge and David Mullins). Kathryn is diving tomorrow so wish her luck.

I will post the results as they come in.