[News] Ben Noble - Australia's deepest man

[NewsBot]

From Mark Harris - British Freediving AssociationThe BFA and Deeperblue are proud to announce the achievements of Ben Noble, Deeperblue contributor and staff member of the British Freediving Association, has been declared Australia's deepest freediver.He ...

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[naiad]

Wooooow! Well done Ben!

[fcallagy]

jebus well done Benney worlds deepest accountant?

[Pastor]

Originally Posted by fcallagy

jebus well done Benney worlds deepest accountant?

Shame the rules don't stipulate that accountants should have to stay down there

Well done Ben mate

[samdive]

welll done Benny! was cool to be part of it : )

[Spaniard]

Congratulations!!

[jome]

Nice one Benny!

[daveking]

Ben,

Congratulations on all the records! I think that means you have to buy beers for us all when you return!!!

See you in the lake in January and I expect the same depths there!!!

[jayhem]

WoW Ben, amazing result after all that splashing around in dirty pools and freezing your... ears in quarry lakes! WELL DONE!!!
~JM

[BennyB]

Cheers guys.

Whoa that's embarrassing... my mum knows how to google so i'll never hear the end of this!

We had a superb team out there which made things go seamlessly. Lotta and Linda at Freedive Dahab were absolutely brilliant, from arranging transfers to overseeing safety, calming nerves, setting up the pyramid, hauling ropes, numerous dives (bloody deep too sometimes) to retrieve the sled and yelling at stupid tourists who got too close. But, thanks to some trial and error we now know how to bribe them so if anyone needs to know just PM me (hint: nougat filled ones work best!). Thanks L&L!

Sofus Kreutzmann was out in Dahab doing some diving and dropped everything to help us out during training and then safety dived for us for the record attempts and was chief rope puller - what an awesome guy, thanks Sofus! Also a big big thank you to Ukranian Kat for doing the video - funny sitting in the back of a jeep in egypt talking about common friends in Sydney.

We had some seriously cool scuba people - thanks Monkey Matt and Vodka Elf for taking some cool footage and hanging around the underworld waiting for us to make up our minds about dives, and also for slapping us into shape when we were whinging about sore throats and ears and being to windy etc.

Sam, Queen of the Lake proved she can mix it in the salt too, thanks for the cool pics, safety and moral support!

Have to thank the wonderful Mrs Noble too for putting up with my crazy shenanigans, freezing her butt off taking photos of me, listening to our endless one-tracked conversations and generally allowing me to be a kid for the greater glory of freediving. Thanks babe!

I'm sure i've forgotten a few people so apologies to them!

Two other people that deserve a separate thread - Anne-Marie who came out to dive her heart out, trained like a crazy banshee but gradually succumbed to about 7 different bugs and viruses and could not do any attempts. Hat's off to you for getting as far as you did under truly horrific circumstances!

And finally Britain's Deepest Man - the blue lightening that is Mark Harris!!! Mark was going for Free Immersion and Variable Weight, on the first attempt day Mark had some surface issues and did not succeed in his FIM dive, very strange seeing he had completed much deeper dives in training. Later we discovered he had all the symptoms of dehydration that day so after some rehydration sachets and plenty of water bounced back to nail Variable Weight at 80m. In all his excitement he put fins on but ended up using his arms only to pull himself back all the way, probably not the best prep for a Free Immersion dive, though understandably if you've seen Mark's legs Not half an hour after this he pounced on the Free Immersion record with a very clean and solid 64m dive. Of course tradition being that all the Gods could not have all smiled on Mark at the same time, shortly after Mark's duckdive his noseclip was knocked off at about 4m depth. So what happens when you have to keep one hand on your nose? You do a 64m Free Immersion dive with one hand obviously! The man knows how to perform under pressure!

Mark did most of the preparation and logistical stuff for our record attempts so a huge thanks to you mate, and congratulations on your 2 new records!

Cheers,
Ben

[AltSaint]

Originally Posted by BennyB

... Mark had some surface issues and did not succeed in his FIM dive...

Some men would go to great lengths ( or depths ) to wake up in the arms of Lotta. I love the new 'Blue Lightening' moniker, but don't dis the legs. Any chicken would be proud.

For everyone who Benny has thanked, I would like to do the same. Sometimes when you're on a freediving association committee you lose sight of all the good things about freediving - comradery, teamwork, compassion and fun. We had all of those last week, and I count myself very lucky to have had that experience.

Mr h

[naiad]

Well done Mark too!

[OceanMan]

Well done Mark and Ben !!

Amazing stuff !

[laura storm]

Thanks Benny and Mr Blue Lightening H - always a pleasure to be part of something special. No ocean too deep as far as I'm concerned. Working on getting the images out as soon as poss. Manic Monday's become manic Tuesday!

Thanks from me to the top crew who helped pull this together - to Lotta and Linda and to Peter and the guys at Oxygene Diving for pulling the stops out and being so flexible with our tech requirements and long dives.

x

[Monkey Matt]

Well done to Ben and Mark, I vote we go back next week and do it all again!
I am working on the video footage of the dives and Kate has some nice surface stuff although Ukranian wide screen needs a bit of stretching to make it work. The upside is that everyone looks thinner in the surface shots. Well it is an upside for all apart from old Chicken Legs/Blue Lightning who now looks as if he has two loose threads hanging from his waist
I will do a Youtube link for the dives some time in the next 7 days.