The Florida Event Diary
Posted By Eric Fattah on 5 July 2001
Day 8
The last chance to make the -79m prerequisite. I spent a long time last night working on my psychology, and it worked. I was more confident, and I felt better. Another early wake up. I failed the blood pressure test miserably, and now I was totally unable to eat or even drink, so I couldn't correct my blood pressure. On the boat, I was happy and confident. Today was the first day of full safety support. I didn't feel seasick until near the end of the boat ride, when we ran into 7-foot waves. I got in the water, feeling more seasick by the minute. Once in the water, again I couldn't do statics or negatives. I felt okay until my 45m warm up dive. I felt like I was about to throw up in the last 10 meters. There was a big current today, and the deep line was going down at 15 degrees again. The huge waves were unmanageable. Immediately after surfacing from my warm up dive I told Kirk to start the 5-minute count for the safety divers, because I know now that my seasickness only gets worse. I tried to sit on the platform but it was hopeless. It was being thrown around like a toy in the huge waves. With 2 minutes remaining I got back in the water and breathed through my snorkel, fighting back the seasickness, knowing I needed to hit the 79m marker. My blood pressure was now dangerously low--I was so thirsty on the boat, but not only could I not drink (my stomach didn't want to) but drinking makes me more seasick. I knew with my low BP I would never be conscious from a 79m dive. If I turned very early and made a safe dive, I knew the many safety people would be a bit upset, and people would ask why I didn't go deeper. But, I didn't want a deep blackout. So I decided the best thing was to make a dive where I surfaced borderline. The safety people would be happy, and no one could blame me for not trying or not going deeper. So that's what I did, and I did it perfectly, which I think is a great accomplishment, to know my own physiology so perfectly. With such low BP, I had to pack, wait, pack, wait, for a full 30-40 seconds. Finally, not full yet, I just went. I descended down the 15 degree line. I equalized at 70-71m, and grabbed the line somewhere around 75 meters, and looked below me, expecting the 79m marker to be right there, but there had been a problem with line stretch so the disk (as we found out later) was around 89-90m. I reached the surface after 2:50, I looked Kirk in the eye, and I clearly remember taking three or four breaths, then apparently I passed out for about 4-5 seconds, then spontaneously woke up. The gauge showed -75.1m. I was actually incredibly happy with the 'result', considering that my body was pathetically weak and dehydrated, and the conditions were horrible, and I was seasick...and despite all those things I was amazingly close to pulling off the 3rd deepest dive in history...
I'll try for the constant ballast record again in VANCOUVER, where I know I can make it, where I don't have to worry about rough water, exhaust fumes, seasickness, deep water currents, new germs, new food, sea lice, thunderstorms....sure, the water is cold and dark, but so what?
Again, thanks to everyone who supported me and believed in me.
Special thanks to Kirk Krack for a great job organizing, and thanks to Paul Kotik for allowing the whole Team-PFD to use his new house!
Congratulations to Martin Stepanek on his two static records, 7:42 and 8:06, and congratulations to Karoline Dal Toe with her 6:13 static record. Long live Team-PFD !!!!
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