1st October
Today was the first day of training in Sharm, even if I arrived in the Sinai 2 weeks ago. At first I went up to Dahab to help with the Blue Spirit event and hopefully train in the Blue Hole. After the first couple of dives to 60 and 67 meters I came down with a throat infection, which developed also into an ear infection. Thanks to Dr Adel and 8 days of no diving (can you imagine 8 days dry in Dahab?) I am now completely recovered, and before leaving Dahab I had a dive to 72m.
Mike Lott arrived last night, and he will be safetying for my training dives over the next 3 weeks in the lead up to the world record attempt on the 24th. This morning, after the usual lung and body stretches in my room we cruised down to the little beach in front of Club Sharm. We swam out to the descent line, which is in 90m of water, a short swim from the floating pontoon. There was a little wind, and the odd wave was breaking over us, so I chose to breathe up through my snorkel. After about 8 minutes of slow breathing I duck-dived and started swimming down. In the Bahamas I would take 6 strokes before freefall, but here and in the Mediterranean where the water is saltier I use 7. Because this was the first dive in new conditions we had decided that I wouldn’t do more than 70, so I turned as soon as I saw the first fat yellow marker.
During the ascent I concentrated on lengthening my stroke out, counting the number of strokes so as to see whether the 4 months of hard pool training in Sardinia had improved my technique. 21 strokes to reach the surface, and a dive time of 2’33” for a depth of 70.72m. It was the easiest dive since I arrived, and I didn’t feel any CO2 narcosis on the bottom or contractions during the ascent.
Today was the first day of training in Sharm, even if I arrived in the Sinai 2 weeks ago. At first I went up to Dahab to help with the Blue Spirit event and hopefully train in the Blue Hole. After the first couple of dives to 60 and 67 meters I came down with a throat infection, which developed also into an ear infection. Thanks to Dr Adel and 8 days of no diving (can you imagine 8 days dry in Dahab?) I am now completely recovered, and before leaving Dahab I had a dive to 72m.
Mike Lott arrived last night, and he will be safetying for my training dives over the next 3 weeks in the lead up to the world record attempt on the 24th. This morning, after the usual lung and body stretches in my room we cruised down to the little beach in front of Club Sharm. We swam out to the descent line, which is in 90m of water, a short swim from the floating pontoon. There was a little wind, and the odd wave was breaking over us, so I chose to breathe up through my snorkel. After about 8 minutes of slow breathing I duck-dived and started swimming down. In the Bahamas I would take 6 strokes before freefall, but here and in the Mediterranean where the water is saltier I use 7. Because this was the first dive in new conditions we had decided that I wouldn’t do more than 70, so I turned as soon as I saw the first fat yellow marker.
During the ascent I concentrated on lengthening my stroke out, counting the number of strokes so as to see whether the 4 months of hard pool training in Sardinia had improved my technique. 21 strokes to reach the surface, and a dive time of 2’33” for a depth of 70.72m. It was the easiest dive since I arrived, and I didn’t feel any CO2 narcosis on the bottom or contractions during the ascent.
