Sorry for the interruption – in the last 4 or 5 days I have felt so feeble and unmotivated that I haven’t even been writing my own personal training diary, let alone this one!
After the day off my target for the 5th of October was 76m (one meter more than the very easy 75m dive I did on the 3rd). The result: blackout, maybe as much as 2m below the surface. I came round relatively quickly on the surface thanks to my excellent safety diver Mike Lott, but was perplexed as to why I blacked out on what should have been an easy dive. At first I blamed it on the conditions, which were very poor that morning, with a strong cross-current and many annoying distractions. But I have done much deeper dives in much worse conditions, so I wasn’t completely convinced.
The next day, the 6th of October, I stepped the target back to 70m - and had a samba on the surface. Now this was just plain stupid: I have done over 100 70m+ CWNF dives (sometimes back-to-back on the same day), and it is a depth that should be a walk in the park. Something was definitely up. In fact I had been feeling very weak and insipid, and during breathe-ups it was almost impossible to avoid hypocapnia, despite breathing at most 3 times per minute. So even without a warm-up and with an almost non-existent breathe-up I was getting pins and needles in my hands and feet.
At any rate I took the 7th of October as a rest day and tried to figure out what was going on. My suspicions started to turn towards a condition of low blood pressure. When getting out of bed or standing up quickly I was getting faint-headed and tunnel vision, and my resting heart rate was higher than a doormouse.
On the morning of the 8th of October I was still feeling weak, but decided to attempt another 70m dive. During the breathe-up I actually had to stop, get out of the water to raise my CO2 levels, then get back in and breathe extremely slowly, with 20-40” apneas between inhale and exhale. Even then I started the dive with slight finger-tingling. The dive was clean however, albeit a lot more difficult than it ought to have been.
That morning at breakfast I started thinking about salt. Here at Club Sharm Resort there is a single restaurant where we eat all three meals every day, and the salt that they use in cooking and put on the table might as well be talcum powder for all it salts: I poured some on my tongue and couldn’t taste anything over than the rice they use to keep it dry… I asked the restaurant manager for an alternative but he said that is the only salt available in Sharm.
This morning, October 9, I decided to try a 75m dive, despite still feeling very weak. Once again the breathe-up had to be ridiculously slow and shallow, and once again I started the dive with mild tingling. I managed to maintain absolute control in the ascent and the dive was clean, but I knew that with the condition I was in a deeper dive would have been impossible. Something had to be done.
After breakfast (omelette covered with 1cm of fairy salt) I took the cab to Nema Bay to try and find some rehydration salts. The pharmacist was asleep on the floor of his shop, but we soon woke him up and I bought 4 boxes of Rehydro-Zinc, refusing his offer of some potent drugs that looked like they would never survive the AIDA doping test. I also bought some pure fruit juice and real Italian water.
The change was instantaneous. A friend actually said ‘My God, your face is changing colour!’ Whereas before I felt like I had cold brown tea trickling down my veins now I can feel gouts of hot sticky blood squirting and sluicing through my body. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s dive…
After the day off my target for the 5th of October was 76m (one meter more than the very easy 75m dive I did on the 3rd). The result: blackout, maybe as much as 2m below the surface. I came round relatively quickly on the surface thanks to my excellent safety diver Mike Lott, but was perplexed as to why I blacked out on what should have been an easy dive. At first I blamed it on the conditions, which were very poor that morning, with a strong cross-current and many annoying distractions. But I have done much deeper dives in much worse conditions, so I wasn’t completely convinced.
The next day, the 6th of October, I stepped the target back to 70m - and had a samba on the surface. Now this was just plain stupid: I have done over 100 70m+ CWNF dives (sometimes back-to-back on the same day), and it is a depth that should be a walk in the park. Something was definitely up. In fact I had been feeling very weak and insipid, and during breathe-ups it was almost impossible to avoid hypocapnia, despite breathing at most 3 times per minute. So even without a warm-up and with an almost non-existent breathe-up I was getting pins and needles in my hands and feet.
At any rate I took the 7th of October as a rest day and tried to figure out what was going on. My suspicions started to turn towards a condition of low blood pressure. When getting out of bed or standing up quickly I was getting faint-headed and tunnel vision, and my resting heart rate was higher than a doormouse.
On the morning of the 8th of October I was still feeling weak, but decided to attempt another 70m dive. During the breathe-up I actually had to stop, get out of the water to raise my CO2 levels, then get back in and breathe extremely slowly, with 20-40” apneas between inhale and exhale. Even then I started the dive with slight finger-tingling. The dive was clean however, albeit a lot more difficult than it ought to have been.
That morning at breakfast I started thinking about salt. Here at Club Sharm Resort there is a single restaurant where we eat all three meals every day, and the salt that they use in cooking and put on the table might as well be talcum powder for all it salts: I poured some on my tongue and couldn’t taste anything over than the rice they use to keep it dry… I asked the restaurant manager for an alternative but he said that is the only salt available in Sharm.
This morning, October 9, I decided to try a 75m dive, despite still feeling very weak. Once again the breathe-up had to be ridiculously slow and shallow, and once again I started the dive with mild tingling. I managed to maintain absolute control in the ascent and the dive was clean, but I knew that with the condition I was in a deeper dive would have been impossible. Something had to be done.
After breakfast (omelette covered with 1cm of fairy salt) I took the cab to Nema Bay to try and find some rehydration salts. The pharmacist was asleep on the floor of his shop, but we soon woke him up and I bought 4 boxes of Rehydro-Zinc, refusing his offer of some potent drugs that looked like they would never survive the AIDA doping test. I also bought some pure fruit juice and real Italian water.
The change was instantaneous. A friend actually said ‘My God, your face is changing colour!’ Whereas before I felt like I had cold brown tea trickling down my veins now I can feel gouts of hot sticky blood squirting and sluicing through my body. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s dive…
