[CONTINUATION]
After the 95m alarm, I equalized again and looked up to see the same eerie dark bottom plate with the light blinding me, just like on the 90m dive. The only difference was that I was more narked this time, and when I grabbed the line and reached to the plate, and felt around like a blind man, I could not find a tag. But I was determined -- I would stay as long as necessary to find a tag, despite that every second at this depth would worsen the narcosis on the ascent. I felt around, swung my hand around the perimeter, felt something but missed it. I moved to another spot, felt something and grabbed it. It was a tag. I put it on the velcro on my leg, pulled on the line, and started up. Later upon watching the video I found I had spent EIGHT seconds at 100m trying to get the tag! Once I did a few strokes and had some upwards momentum, I did have a remarkable series of thoughts. It was still pitch black and I felt weird beyond belief from the narcosis, but I smiled and with an incredible feeling of relief told myself that my 10 year journey has finally come to an end -- YOU DID IT -- I told myself, and the emotion was hard to describe, intermixed with the drunken feeling you get when diving so deep. I knew I had less air in my lungs than planned, but at this point, for me, the outcome was never in doubt. Not for a moment did I doubt that I would make it to the surface and be okay. I knew the ascent would be weird, dreamlike, and impossibly grueling and exhausting -- I knew my legs would fail over and over and I would have to stop for long periods to rest them -- I knew all that -- but I knew that I would make it eventually. I just had to do it. With that last thought I just went to it, and had very few clear thoughts after that. Somehow, and remarkably, I did manage to keep count of the monofin strokes -- aiming for 61, which I calculated would get me to the surface based on the 90m dive. Ultimately I lost count around 71 strokes. My legs failed over and over, and I had to stop and rest, but I never felt fear nor panic, I just waited for some seconds and resumed the ascent. According to the X1 my legs first failed at 58m, and then around every 10m thereafter. When the 50m ascent alarm finally went off, I wasn't really listening for it, so it didn't have much effect on me, and I was still quite narked. Finally I saw the safety freediver in front of me around 30m. I was still mentally sharp and was very happy to see the safety diver. I knew I was close now, it was almost a done deal. The clarity of my thoughts encouraged me. I stopped dead as my legs failed, and the safety diver (Brian), nearly grabbed me, uncertain of what I was doing. I started again, stopped, started, and finally I saw the edge of the blue hole, which meant I was at 7-8m. I looked up, saw the platform, broke the surface, grabbed the rope, took three or four breaths, then quickly removed my goggles and nose clip, looked at the judge Linden and said 'I'm okay!!', almost with a bit of surprise in my tone. In fact in terms of mental clarity I felt about as clear as after the 90m dive.... But I still needed to produce the tag, and many divers had been losing the tag. I could only hope that the tag was still attached to the velcro on my leg. With some fear I reached into the water and felt for it.... and it was there! I removed it from the velcro and raised it into the air, and I heard a ton of cheers (including Maggie's piercing cheer from shore!) I was clear enough to feel joy, although I had so much acid in my legs that I was still gasping and gasping for breath. The judges gave me the white card (approval), and more cheers erupted. I smiled. The official Suunto D4 gauge read 100.3m in 3 minutes 22 seconds, fully 12 seconds longer than the time I had announced -- due to sinking less streamlined, wasting 8 seconds looking for the tag, and stopping many times on the ascent... The next thing I knew, William Trubridge came over to the line (he was next), so I had to vacate to allow him access. I swam and fetched my mask, carefully putting the tag into my mask box (as to not lose it). I swam to the O2 decompression line, and Maggie shouted for a picture from shore. She snapped a quick photo. I wanted to descend to breathe from the scuba oxygen at 5m, but I was too out of breath and we had limited oxygen. I could not hyperventilate while on the scuba regulator as doing so would waste oxygen. I gasped hard for 30 seconds to try to catch my breath, then descended on the oxygen. As I hung there at 5m breathing the oxygen, I was alone, and finally able to consider my accomplishment. In the final hour, against all odds and despite a failing body, and despite lungs that were not even full, I had pulled of my dream depth after 10 years of trying, in official conditions, with tons of videographers and judges and spectators -- and I even had air to spare upon surfacing. I had become the 12th person in history to register an official dive of 100m or more. I felt a great sense of accomplishment as I breathed the oxygen. Yet, I was still feeling totally exhausted and my body was still very stressed. I would probably enjoy it even more later on, I thought, once I am more recovered. I exited the water and several divers congratulated me. Maggie filmed me as I gave my account of the dive. Many photos later, I had changed into my swimsuit, and was suntanning on the beach. We had bought a conch salad, but I had no appetite. On earlier competition days I could at least eat after the dive, but today my appetite did not return even after the dive.
We flew home the next day. Upon arriving at home at midnight Vancouver time (3am Bahamas time), we entered our house only to find Andrew, Roberta, Matt, Pete, Tyler and Linda awaiting us with a MIDNIGHT surpise party!!! They had balloons, and posters they had made themselves, as well as a cool snorkeling fin painted with 100m and congratulations messages. It was one of the best moments of my life, and I would like to say a huge thank you to my friends and family for supporting me through this long journey...
Interestingly, when I set myself the dream-goal of 100m back in September of 2000, I had imagined what it would be like. For some reason, I always had an image of a massive lightning storm happening overhead during the 100m dive. Ironically, the night before the 100m success, there was a huge lightning storm on Long Island. The entire month I had been there, there had been no lightning at all.
If you have a good sound setup you should be able to hear some interesting comments from the support and judges across the music:
