Croatia course

[sheepeck]

Halo everybody.

I'm so stoked.
I just returned from my first freediving course in Pag island in Croatia. Course was lead by Dan Exner, freediving.cz
Now I know WHAT does "freediving" mean. I thought I know it when I was doing just my pool trainings but I was wrong.
Going down along the rope, looking up towards blittering surface, gliding over the bottom and through school of fish,... That's something completely different and amazing. Not like swimming over the tiled pool. :naughty

6 days of course flew away but soon I'm in water again even I'm living in central Europe and thus far from the sea. I'm going to Hawaii next month so I'll enjoy warm water dives.

My static training wasn't so good - I wasn't able to push myself harder and calm down enough in the water to reach some better time (only 4:12), but I'm fully satisfied with my CW. Clean 115ft (or 125ft with light LMC) :blackeye

I would recommend taking course to everyone. It's really great thing.

Petr

 

[Sergiu]

I wish this course was made public in advance, I live in Budapest (now THIS is landlacked country!) but it's a relatively short ride to Croatia (5-6 hours) to the coast, would have come along for the course. Well next time around, meanwhile, Dahab here i come!

 

[sheepeck]

I don't know if Dan can make a course in English - this one was tought in Czech. In fact - it was made public waaaaay before - but only on Czech sites I suppose. He will lead several others - also in Dahab - try to contact him and ask - dexner at volny dot cz

 

[sheepeck]

It was only one week but it seemed like more. Simply perfect.
Hm, but the way there was a nightmare. We even didn't cross Czech border yet and got stucked in jam.
So we decided to change our route and instead of Vienna headed to Bratislava and then we turned back to Austria and further south.
Once in Austria - ride was fine, but soon we got to Slovenia and since they don't have a highway heading to Croatia - again - jam.
And then in Croatia again. In Croatia it was due the pay gates. I think we stayed several hours in jams. Would say more then 5.
But after getting to Stara Novalja on northern side of Pag island - all the bad things were forgotten and only good things existed.

15 people attended the course / two girls including. From 18 y to over 55. Good group.

The temperatures was ugly. It wasn't so bad like when being locked in jams, but still - temperatures over 30 seemed too much for me.
Luckily - after few days my body re-set it's termoregulation and I felt OK. (after returning to Czech I complained that the Czech is too cold)
So - it was a good training for hot Maui climate.

We arrived to Pag on Saturday afternoon and next morning started with first free dives.
During those dives I got to 15 m approximately, maybe a bit deeper.
It was good that in that time I didn't have a depth-gauge so I wasn't disturbed by thinking about depth.
Next day was different.
We didn't dive aroung the cliff as during the first day, but just around rope hanging on float tanks - just surrounded by blue water.
So in this time was a bit more difficult to dive - I don't like too much the feeling of vast open sea spaces around me.
I rather like to see something. This time the deepest rope end was in 15 meters and I got there after few attempts.

Every day had same structure - theory and statics during the morning, then rest and diving in the afternoons.
The rope lenght was longer and longer day by day - from those 15 through 20, 30 to 40.
So we were able to train a bit harder every day.
Day before last day I got to 35 meters and I felt that it was an edge.
I have to breath realy fast after popping up.
Plus - the pressure down there was so big that the lungs got sweezed completely and I almost didn't have enought air to equalize my ears.
Simple Valsalva (no Frenzel as I wrote before) didn't worked. In fact - that was the reason why I didn't go deeper that day.

Static trainings were also interesting. I wasn't able to push myself enought to reach some good time.
Because I felt the pressure on me - like when coach told us that we should push harder that day or so - when I felt this -
I simply gave up and wasn't able to make myself fight a bit more.
So I did my best time when we weren't pushed.
I know, those 4:12 are about 2 minutes behind my best dry static but I'm satisfied with that.

Day before the last day coach asked everybody which depth we would call as our attepmt during the final day.
I didn't feel I could make 40, but I wanted to go as deep as I could so I decided to announce 39.

Anyway - the conditions weren't nice next day.
Sea was rough and we got exhausted a bit when we had to pull all those float tanks to the diving spot. We didn't use a boat for that.
So I thought to myself that it's simply impossible to reach 39 after all those effort. I felt weak a bit.
But then - others went down there and I had a time to relax just lying on the surface. So when my turn has come - I went.
I kept my chin tucked to my chest (we were told that equalization is easier then) and din't looked down / just straight in front of me on the rope.
When I felt that I'm loosing the air preasure in lungs because of the depth I looked down (couldn't stop myself) and saw bottom disk about 7 m away.
I pumped my diaphragm, got some air to equalize and reached the tag.
Way back was quite OK. Calm down, kick constantly and no looking up.
I popped up and grabbed the float tank. Everything felt a bit dizzy and I breath and breath. Later friends told me that I "nodded" a bit.

Last day we went to dive on one wall more far from the camp.
There were an cave with the entrance in about 5 meters depth and we all got in - there were an air pocket so it was OK.
Really nice ending of the course.

 

[samdive]

I have run an instructor course in Croatia recently so there are a lot of AIDA Instructors there now

check out www.submania.hr for details of their courses

Sam

 

[sheepeck]

Some pictures we took:

Spooky dive

Twins

Cave shot

Cave shot 2

Color shot

Ring

 

[sheepeck]

http://rapidshare.de/files/25141792/MVI_1069.AVI.html

 

[sheepeck]

http://rapidshare.de/files/25207676/Tom_dive.AVI.html

 

[yugyug]

I have run an instructor course in Croatia recently so there are a lot of AIDA Instructors there now

check out www.submania.hr for details of their courses

Sam

hi - that page is in croatian? Do you know of any english language courses being run in Croatia? I'll be there in the first two weeks of august and would love to do a freediving course there if possible.

- guy

 

[wet]

I'm wondering if this course is anywhere near to where that 6.5m great white shark was caught around Croatia?
[ame="http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?t=36772"]diving reflex?[/ame]

Or is the course in a place without sharks? or did you carry spearguns?
I'd have trouble getting relaxed with big sharks around! DDeden