63m Record Attempt
almost a full week after returning from Turkey and I am sitting in a coffee shop with my laptop pondering all the things that went wrong and how I could have corrected it.
I guess most of you all know by now that the record didn't work out as planned...I had spent a week in Jamaica where I ended up catching a cold and only got to dive 3 times and max to 50m unassisted. Was feeling extremely good with the training that I had done in the previous month.
I head to Kas, Turkey to meet with Rudi and Yasemin to do some training dives with the Russian students (all really great people). I manage to get 4 dives in all to 45 and 50m and without wetsuit. Speedo only. We decided to skip the wetsuit because the weather was condusive to it and we thought it would add to the purity of the unassisted dive. Anyway, after the 3rd dive we realized that skin does NOT glide as well as a wetsuit. I found myself with 1kilo of weight and still not being able to freefall. It wasn't that I was too fat or anything like that because I was weighing in at 72kilos and measured body fat of 4.2% before leaving the US. So I don' think there was much buoyancy there...However, I couldn't freefall to save my life.
We had wasted days playing with buoyancy and found ourselves with one last day to attempt 63m and still haven't broken past 50m in training. i know, kinda crazy but considering how comfortable I feel doing 50m, 63 wouldn't have been a big deal. record day has arrived and it was do or die day because the weather was now colder, sea a bit rougher, and windier. we had set up first thing in the morning to beat the early winds but just before going down Rudi calls off the dive because the wind and waves has caused the boat to pull the mooring into shallow water. Our beloved bottom plate is now dragging on the bottom. the reason we just didn't set up again was because of the increasingly bad weather. We decide to pack up and head in and wait for it to break again. At around 16:00 we head back out and try again. By this time I had already done two negative pressure dives from teh morning "attempt" and I was in the zone. (oh, we decide last minute to keep the wetsuit because of the increased temp and not having figured out the buoyancy thing). After my first negative I noticed that I was on the verge of a hyperoxic blackout and had to move around a bit to burn up the high O2...I manage to get through both negative pressure dives and then prepped for the last breath.
Last breath and I slip into the water. here's where the shit hits the fan. (already diving with a minor head cold) at 3m (yes, i said 3m) the I do my first real equalization only to feel the nose clip slip to the end of my nose and I had now expelled about 15-20% if my air. ***** I have to interrupt my stroking techniqe and reposition it. I keep going and then have to reposition the nose clip at 15m again. Everyone asks "why didn't you abort the dive and start over?" well, I was feeling totally oxygenated, fresh, and strong. I figured the worse would be that I have some "difficulty" equalizing. I manage to get to 30m equalizing and trying to push some sludge through my E-tubes to get the ears to clear. they manage but barely. I soon after hear the 45m signal and am still having trouble equalizing. freefalling nicely with my 3mm and 2 kilos of weight but shifting my head and neck all over the place trying to ease the discomfort of the compressed ear drums.
I can tell that I am now past 51m because it just felt different. Probably becaues I have not ventured that deep without fins before. I feel the pressure increasing and equalization is also increasingly difficult. I hear the final signal from the safety diver at 63m and I look up (well, down in the case) and see the bottom plate. I manage to take the tag and put it on my wrist and start my ascent. shortly after leaving the bottom I feel something strange that I haven't felt freediving before...I feel my right ear hurting on the way up...what the hell? I am experiencing a reverse block...Damn thing refuses to clear and I wasn't about to stop at 55m and play with it. I continue a little after and feel it pop and hiss when it gets perforated...the pain went away but now I hear something going "glug glug glug glug"...the sound of water entering my ear. i think I am still below 50m at this time...As soon as water enterd past the eardrum, my descent line starts to look like 5 different lines waving all over the place. Now I can barely tell what's up or down. I decide to try and finish the dive without any assistance from the rope. Instead, for guidance I start rubbing my head on the line so I can feel my way back up in a straight line. From what the safety divers tell me, it just looked like I was constantly bumping my head into the line. It kept me going straight though! All this bumping and loss of technique has now increased my bottom time by a full 20 seconds form the planned dive time of 2:06 for the 63m (yes, I am getting pretty fast without them fins
).....I manage to make it all the way to the surface and then suffer a blackout. Total dive time was right at 2:26...so about 4 to 5 seconds of blackout time I wake up in Rudi's arms....i was hoping for Pamela Anderson but not this time I guess. Funny how something so simple as a nose clip can cause such a freaky chain of events. Anyway, it was close but definately no cigar. The eardrum took about a week to heal shut and I have logged a couple of pool sessions with it already. I am already training for the next attempt which will hopefully take place very soon...I know when everything is working correctly I have this dive plus more left in me. I figure I owe it to you guys to let you know what happened.
If I were to do it all over again I would skip the Jamaica trip and tell my freind who got married that I will be at his next wedding. Go straight to turkey and not mess with the speedo diving. Attempt the record early and leave a few days for errors and such. All I can say is "Next Time!" I decided to chok this one up as a training session and a learning experience.
Alun, thanks for the CD with the videos by the way...Much appreciated!
and the coffee shop is now closing and so is this post.
Thank you all for your support and e-mails. It means more than you can imagine. take care and safe dives to all of you.
David
P.S. the Dieter Baughman "world record" was a hit in Turkey with all the students (one of which did 45m unassisted...and he's 47yo) and the safety divers..You just need things like that to make you smile sometimes.
