AIDA DEPTH WC 2009 in the Bahamas.

[Mullins]

2mm top and swimsuit bottoms worked for me in Deans, bit marginal if I had to spend much time in the water prior to a dive though.

 

[Will]

the water is about 3° warmer than when you were here Dave

 

[wet]

The big problem is sand flies, which are so small you can barely see them. The sand flies appear near sunset, near the water. If you are living away from the water, no problem. If you are staying in one of the villa's, some of which are < 1000m from the water, then the sand flies can be a major issue. I once stayed at the blue hole villa and ended up with hundreds of sand fly bites.

-

Sand flys, aka no-see-ums can be horrid. Absolutely incredible how something that small can have jaws that bite so painfully. Happily they are a sunrise, sunset problem. That is, unless you get them in your bedroom. Then kill'em with some kind of insecticide or they will chew on you all nite long. An Avon product, "Skin so Soft" works pretty well to keep them off, as long as you don't mind smelling like a house of ill repute. 100% deet repellent works fairly well, but is hard on the skin. Connor

Lemongrass, citronella, citric fruit skin oils tend to repel some biting insects like sand flies, but might need to be reapplied often.

Capuchin monkeys, now with refreshing citrus scent : Laelaps

 

[Fondueset]

Crankin' the A/C shuts those bad-boys right down.

 

[cebaztian]

William Trubridge News

 

[Kars]

The quiet before the storm... ?

Where is the news? images of the opening ceremony, maybe a small youtube clip of that would be cool.

I hope everything is in order and the water is pristine, have many nice dives everyone!

 

[trux]

A photo from Jarmila's blog:

​

 

[Tony Babowicz]

How about announcements? I'm dying to hear.

 

[glennv]

Announcements for the first comp day : http://www.verticalblue.net/events/img/top times 27-11.jpg

p.s. Anybody can make a guess as to what the last column is for " Scuba cert " ???????????????????

 

[Mullins]

For using oxygen afterwards?

 

[efattah]

Announcements for the first comp day : http://www.verticalblue.net/events/img/top times 27-11.jpg

p.s. Anybody can make a guess as to what the last column is for " Scuba cert " ???????????????????

The reason is for O2 breathing. For a formal 'insured' event, only someone with scuba certification is allowed to breath O2 from a scuba regulator underwater. Stupid ! But I know this is the case, and Kirk Krack is forced to follow this rule in his courses as well.

Previously at Vertical Blue, anyone could breathe O2. I myself had minor DCS several times at Vertical Blue, and I breathed O2 and it got better -- and I have no scuba certification! So I would be forced to suffer the side effects !

 

[glennv]

Ridiculous. As if during a scuba course they let you breathe enrinched air.
Then better ask for a nitrox certification....

But its stupid anyway.
So you are ensured if you get bend and suffer the effects because you don't go on oxygen because you are not certified, but you are not ensured if you prevent / reduce the bends by illegaly breating oxygen. Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[osusim]

But its stupid anyway.
So you are ensured if you get bend and suffer the effects because you don't go on oxygen because you are not certified, but you are not ensured if you prevent / reduce the bends by illegaly breating oxygen. Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

underwater breating oxygen is not equal surface breating oxygen. Doing recompression near 1.6 pO2 without knowledge is dangerous.

 

[pim]

is all about liability......issues laywers should check for the future rules.

and Igor is right, it is for breathing O2 below surface!

 

[glennv]

underwater breating oxygen is not equal surface breating oxygen. Doing recompression near 1.6 pO2 without knowledge is dangerous.

I understand, that why I said it is ridiculous to ask for scuba. You do not learn that at any standard scuba course. Only some tech/advance course, but minimal nitrox since at least it learns you about enriched air incl oxygen (on some). So asking for scuba makes no sense.
So you should be just as liable with your basic padi, who probably does not even know the meaning of pO2, than without.

 

[wes]

For sure the biggest danger of breathing Off of scuba regulator under controlled situation like at freedive comp is air embolism which kills divers pretty much instantly. This as most of you know comes from breathing in a full breath at 5m for example and ascending and the increasing air pressure building up in your lungs can explode your lungs outward inside your body and pretty much kill you instantly and no medic can help once it happens. There is a simple safety to prevent it to train divers to exhale continuously on ascent the only problem is for this training to stick it should be done, practiced and learned by the person, it is not enough to just read about and understand the concept from a book to not do it, one must be trained underwater to learn to not do it. Lots and lots regular SCUBA people have died from this so is not a trivial thing or something with no risk. (I don't know of any freedivers who have died from doing this breathing DCS O2 at 5m though not that many people do this compared with SCUBA so hard to compare statistics).

Cheers Wes

 

[trux]

Well, the first top time in women's CNF is in half an hour. Is there nobody on place who could report the results at least from a cell phone by SMS?

 

[Jorg]

looks like we're going to have to wait for several hours at least. just like the old days!

 

[azapa]

Crazy Herb. Forgive the copy paste:

Day 21 (November 26th at Dean's Blue Hole) LAB RAT...or you could say Test Pilot...which is probably more appropriate since I am, in fact, a pilot.

Yesterday I discovered that I was not on the list for training - Oops! Just before heading to bed, I paid a visit to the organizer to try and squeeze myself into the line-up. I consider myself lucky, I get the opportunity to test out the counter ballast system. This means I get to do a dive (to a depth of my choice) and then await the activation of the counter ballast after I give them a signal pull. What a great way to work on equalization knowing you have a free ride back to the surface!
After careful discussion as to depth and time and the appropriate time to activate should there not be a signal...I depart on what turns out to be a very nice and deep dive - 122m. I pull the line to signal and wait...then I can feel that the lanyard is tangled in the bottom plate set up. I spend some time trying to untangle and I realize that we are not moving...I had pulled already 3 times but still no counter ballast. Sitting at a 122m already for 15 seconds is not a really wise thing to do. I made the decision to start pulling up just in case there were some problems with the counter ballast...approx 25 seconds after touching down, the entire line starts to move to the surface...YES!
I enjoyed the ride back very much, moving at around 1.5m per second...I released my safety lanyard and let go the line around 20m to move more slowly towards the surface as a precautionary move to avoid DCS a Gas-embolism.

Total Dive time: 3:46.

It was a great training, little effort on my part, great depth achieved and I was able to equalize at the bottom!!!

 

[trux]

This is really disappointing how competition organizers underestimate the importance of live reporting to the public. With no publicity, they can't be surprised then when it is not easy to find sponsors. It is extremely rare that they assign a person responsible for reporting. I understand they may not have sufficient means for live broadcasting, but seeting up a Twitter account, and assiging one of the lurkers to send an SMS after each Surface Protocol would cost nothing, and even a kid could do it, who would be thankful to be useful.