Constant under ice...

[hteas]

Eric,
You mention CO2 and narcosis. Are you really relating them? I am asking, because Keller and Buhlmann claimed that Keller was able to down in his diving barrel to 400 ft breathing either 5% or 10% oxygen (depending on whose story), and the rest nitrogen. Nobody since has explored tha possiblilty that it is the CO2 that causes the narcosis. Any thoughts.
Have you tried a dive skin to help with the cold? A skin shouldn't increase the buoyancy the way neoprene does.
Howard Teas

 

[Jon]

Co2 can intensify narcosis, and cause deepwater blackout in scuba divers. It's the reason everyone used to be so high on "high flow" regualtors- so it would reduce C02 build up on deep air dives. Trimix allows you to use a cheap regulator and still breath easy because of the smaller size of the He atom vs. N2.

I can't imagine anyone using a 10% 02/ 90 %N2 mix at 400' since it would make you loopy as hell at 20'. They we're playing around with helium and hydrogn back then- Max Knoll was making 437' Helium dives in Lake Michigan back in the 30's.

Eric, I have some questions about you inhale dives with lack of narcosis. I know from years of deep air diving that I can "feel" fine with proper breathing, warm drysuit, high flow regulator, and a scooter to drag my butt around, but that doesn't mean I wasn't narked at the time. I used to think I was fine until I did some heliotrox dives on a simple 75' wreck, that I must have over 500 dives on, and saw a lot more details than I ever realized- and thus the reason why we use 100' EAD's on our trimix dives.

I can understand the idea of no narcosis on an exhale dive, but an inhale dive?
It goes against everything I've ever heard of when talking to hyperbaric doc's about this. I'm wondering if your dealing more with a conditioned response under stress rather than real avoidance of narcosis?

Jon

 

[laminar]

Hi Alun,

I was the one who effed up the measurements. It had been so long since we'd done a deep dive with the line we've always used. Usually, I'm the one who sets up the line on shore, checks the markings, etc...Instead, I spent the time teaching my sweetie (Jill) the basics of constant weight on a different line. She made a nice new pb of 22.6 metres. But now I've got to show her how to do the same depth with frenzel (which she can do on land already) so she doesn't get squeezed or hurt her ears. Anyway, I went from teaching her to spotting Eric. As I let down the line from the float, I counted 7 line markings for 70 metres. Only 7 markings actually means 80 metres. :duh

Fortunately, this dumb mistake was not distrastrous, although I was surprised to see Mr. Reliable to have trouble recovering on the surface after a 70m dive . Usually, his LMC dives are few and far between, plus most of the time his tolerance for low O2 is very high, so if he does LMC, I never see it.

I met Eric at 30m and noted that he was looking a little urgent in the last 20m. He stopped kicking briefly at 10m and then kicked the rest of the way up without stopping.

Spotting someone who is diving without a suit is an odd experience because it is so rare to see anyone kicking up from depth with only a speedo on. But it really is an amazing way to dive. I will never compete again with a suit if I can help it.

At 15C, the water is actually too warm on the surface to properly vasoconstrict. You just get cold slowly. It is a lot harder to relax. I usually do a hang below the first significant thermocline to get "puckered up." Then I am able to relax on the surface. This was the first time that Eric tried diving without that first step on a deep dive, I think. If there had been a sharp thermocline along the way, say 12C down to 6C, then it would have been a lot more difficult to relax on the way down. That is what happens in summer here: 20C on the surface and 8C at the bottom, even 6C in some places. Ouch!

Diving with no warm up would really be the only way to do an under the ice dive without a suit. I think you'd have to have some sort of non-compressible neoprene cap on to eliminate brain freeze and ear pain for cold water entering the ear canal. In 1C water you would vasconstrict instantly with great pain, I imagine, and then you'd have less than a minute or so to relax and begin the dive. But I believe it could be done. If Lynn Cox can swim one mile in the Antarctic, then one of us could do deep dive under ice. As long as there is a warm ice hut next to the hole!

Pete

 

[Alun]

we have a type of roman numeral marking system for our rope which makes mistakes pretty much impossible. one blue stripe is 10m, one black is 50m. one black and three blue is 80m. etc yellows mark the 5's inbetween and white markings for every metre.

i quite fancy trying no-suit diving again sometime, but we don't have a boat and i would need to swim out 100m to the deep area, so it might be difficult right now.

 

[laminar]

I like that system alun. I'll talk to the boss about putting it into effect.

Yeah, swimming the 100m on the way back can kill you if you're too cold (afterdrop)

Pete

 

[Jussi]

Eric,
How do you keep up your chest, diaphragm and trachea flexibility with such a long break since your last deep dive? I'd expect to have lost a great deal of fllexibility if I hadn't been doing deep dives since last June.

Anyway, congratulations, that's quite a dive!

Jussi

 

[kingohyes]

Soo, if an aggressive breathup makes the narcosis go away... What if Im doing the no-warmup or breathup approach?? Which I do btw, should I quit doing it this way in order to reduce narcosis??

 

[efattah]

Last weekend we repeated the no-suit deep dive.

The water had cooled down, 14C on the surface, still 6C at depth.

This time there was a huge current so I was afraid to go all the way to the bottom at 80m. I turned at 73.6m and finished the dive in a more speedy 2'31". I had lots of air left and was very clear headed.

Some important changes from last weekend:
- Did the sinking phase with one arm extended, since with no suit, extending just one arm is very easy (while pinching the nose with the other hand)
- Ascended faster and with arms extended (again, without the suit, there is ZERO resistance to extending the arms, and the cold water in the armpits further cools the core body, which reduces metabolism)

Once again I got into the water with 1 minute before my 2 minute countdown. I didn't hyperventilate as much (to reduce the risk of samba), but I really paid the penalty for that, because with the increased CO2, the CO2 narcosis/anxiety effect was stronger on the ascent, even compared to the 80m dive. If anyone wants to read about CO2 narcosis, you should read the study done at Duke University. The bottom line is that CO2 has its own narcosis. If you inhale 100% O2 at sea level, and exercise in apnea, you will eventually get strong CO2 narcosis and eventually black-out from CO2 toxicity, even with 0% nitrogen in your lungs.

The descent time was 1'31", the ascent time was 1'00".

Someone asked about chest flexibility. Even with no warmups, I avoid squeeze in the following ways:
- Recreational dives all year round with an occasional negative dive
- Yoga breathing exercises including nauli kriya, year-round
- Extremely slow descent on my dives
- Extremely relaxed chest & body on the descent, due to mouthfill equalizing technique (no chest effort or strain from doing deep frenzels or valsalvas)
- No suit in cold water causes extremely fast blood shift; this would require MANY negative or FRC dives with a suit, in order to simulate

The competition is next weekend. I was thinking of announcing 75m or 77m. Any requests?

 

[Ambra]

I think you could repeat your 80 m dive,in competition,go for it!
----
I am going to Norway,to do some Ice diving.Should I try some no suit diving?
Water is around 2C!

 

[efattah]

Ambra,

If you want to try no-suit diving in 2C, you would have to splash yourself a LOT before going in, especially your chest. Remember if you get in too fast, you could get a heart attack!

Once in 2C water, if you were WARM before you got in, you would only have 2-4 minutes before you had to get out, unless you had lots of practice, or unless you were VERY HOT before you got in. It would take one minute at least to acclimatize to the water, which would give you enough time for one short dive....?

However you would need to be VERY careful about the after-drop. Once you get out, you must NOT MOVE; you would need to be dried off (BY SOMEONE ELSE) and then wrapped in warm blankets. You should not move at all except to shiver, otherwise you get a shock of cold blood to your chest which could kill you.... be careful!

Spending 12 minutes in 6C (being already a bit cold before I got in) nearly killed me in 2003, so please don't repeat my error!

 

[fpernett]

Go for 77, in competition you will have a lot of security around you and the narcosis shouldn´t be a problem, and reduce the risk of a samba.
That extra 3.4 meters at the same velocity of descent and ascent will cost only 7 seconds more of dive time (4.25 down and 2.78 up), as you end this dive with air to spare this shouldn´t be a problem.

I feel weird giving advice to Eric Fattah in constant weight!!.

 

[DeepThought]

Eric, those are amazing feats but this sounds a little scary - as scary as a samba or BO would sound to a novice/non-freediver maybe, but it seems like there's no room for too many mistakes.

Can you estimate how big is the gain (in meters or percentage) of this kind of hypothermic/no-suit diving?
As you are actually pioneering it (correct me if I'm wrong), there's no example in nature or the freediving world of such kind of deep diving where one gets so hypothermic - even at the surface. Can you compare it to your previous deep suited dives? (eventhough you probably had different adaptations then...)

Good luck in the competition, dive safe.

 

[laminar]

Hi Deepthought,

I don't think you get hypothermic at the surface before the dive. Numerous studies have shown that cold adapted people (swimmer Lynn Cox, for example) actually see a rise in the core body temperature after initial immersion and vasoconstriction. In our experience with no-suit diving, it is easier to relax in colder water (after the initial shock of getting in subsides) despite the fact that hypothermia will come on faster.

It is not obvious to most observers that it is far easier to relax in water colder than 10C (once you get in, of course ) than it is to relax in water in the 14-20C range. In the warmer water, shivering can start after your second or third dive, which makes things rather unpleasant. Problems with diving in colder water (for me, anyway) are head freeze and groin freeze, although after a few sessions, these tend to go away. Once on a very long recreational dive I had a wickedly fast onset of narcosis (feelings of doom) and I was still on my way down at around 25m.

On a single deep dive without any water warm ups, hypothermia is minimal compared to a longer no suit diving session. I think the most I've shivered after a deep dive is 20 min, whereas after a much longer session 3 dives, 2min+ each, I'll shiver for closer to 40 min - 60 min.

As far a competition goes, no suit diving is beautifully simple. No lube, no worrying about your suit tearing, no nausea, no overheating, no sweating inside the suit, and you always feel ready to go down without a suit on, whereas many times I've felt that the suit is keeping me from being in dive mode, insulating me from the water. Also, the freedom of being unencumbered by a suit is sensational.

The deepest I've gone without a suit is 45m and it was the most enjoyable competition dive of my life (I cut my depth at the last minute because of chest congestion).

I suppose the only disadvantage to no suit freediving would be in more tropical waters where there are stinging jellyfish and sea lice.

Pete

 

[bluh2o]

Have you guys heard of this man?

http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/physed/research/people/giesbrecht.shtml

He might be able to help you with some of your science.

I'll keep my 3M suit on in 78f water here in Hawaii for now. Spent too much time shivering I quess.

TP

 

[efattah]

Yes, I have communicated with Giesbrecht before, over e-mail. In fact he wanted me to come to his lab in Manitoba for a cold water immersion test/experiment!

 

[SanSan]

I heard Ambra had gone to Norway on tuesday to prepair and brake the Bill Stromberg record under ice in FIM.

Breaking of the records will be during the weekend from 13th to 15th of May, in
Norwegian Lake Geiranger. At the moment the ice is 1,5 meters thick. The lake
lies approx. 300 km from Tronheim and is 1000 meter above sea level and the
water temperature is around 2C.

Go for it Ambra. :ko

 

[marin2004]

I heard last night, Ambra did 56 meters under ice. Although no one mentioned was it FI or CW, cause for public "56 meters under ice" is more than enough.
I believe it was free imersion, its becoming his favorite discipline.

Marin

 

[tulla]

Hi to all internet freedivers.
I know some of you croatian boys and I can say that you talk too much and dive only on web.
That’s all for now from me.

Tullilah

 

[Ambra]

Hi Eric,hi everybody!

I have returned from Norway,and did 56 FIM.

I tried no suit diving (water was 2 C,and outside was 0 +wind with snow).
Started with breathing,but I couldn`t breath properly,my breathing muscles started to paralyze,so I went to only 5 meters.

-Maybe, if I was more warm(I tried that after 50 minutes spending in 5 mm. suit) I could do some dive,but no more than 30met.

 

[tulla]

CONGRATULATION for your dive.
Best regards to you from tulla