Eric Fattah's World Record
Posted By Peter Scott on 13 August 2001
After Florida- World Record Training in Home Waters
After an important learning experience in Florida, Eric Fattah decided that he would attempt to break the constant ballast world record in his home waters at Ansell Point. Ansell Point is a small sheltered cove of coastline in Howe Sound, just north of Vancouver, BC, Canada. It is blessed with deep water over 90 metres deep only a few hundred metres from shore. It is where Team Canada and the local freedivers train year round. For most of the year, the water temperature ranges 8 to 12 degrees celsius at the surface and 4-6 degrees at depth. In summer, the surface heats up to 17-21 degrees celsius for the hottest months. Eric knew that "ideal" Ansell Point conditions were precious with only a few weekends left in the summer. His training would turn out to be a long and eventful experiment in cold water deep diving.
Eric had been trying to establish a training regimen and a "record-day" routine that would give him the best chance to make consistent deep dives with a clean recovery. In the month leading up to the record attempt, this approach had yielded 2 dives to 82 metres, one dive to 88 metres, and several confidence-building dives in the 68-74 metre range. This routine was especially important if he was to go for the 85-90 metre attempt on Day 2. Everything had to be perfect. Eric only had the weekend to make his attempt, he had already taken all the time off from work he could afford.
His 88 metre dive on July 29th had taught him a great deal about the perils and challenges of cold-water constant ballast freediving. It was exciting to witness a dive to a depth no one had reached before, even though for Eric and all of us, the experience was a sobering one: "I sank past the 75m lightstick," Eric writes, "and down, and down, faster, and the narcosis became severe. I looked up and saw the 30W light at the bottom of the line. My ears were still autoequalizing from the constant frenzel pressure, and my mouth was still full of air to equalize. I grabbed the line and reached passed the light, to 88m. Then I pulled myself up and let go, and started kicking. Now the problems began. The blood shift was so strong that my legs already felt weak on the first monofin stroke! I hadn't used my legs for over a minute (the long sinking phase), and already they felt weak."
Eric had touched bottom at 1:38, having already spent thirty seconds at the narcosis-inducing depth and in the cold 5 degree celsius water.
"I continued stroking gently, arms still by my side. I thought to myself, 'just make it to the 60m light with no contractions...' I counted my monofin strokes. During the first 82m dive I had counted to 37, before losing count (about 55 strokes total to get up). Today I lost count at 7. According to the profile from my watch, I passed the 70m mark at 2:00. I made it to the 65m light at 2:05, no contractions, but my diaphragm was fluttering, and I was resisting the contractions. As I passed the 65m light (which was pointing down), the world became dark, and the line was almost invisible. I was overwhelmed with narcosis. Soon, I got a contraction. Now, with almost no blood in my legs or arms, my whole body started feeling very weak. At 53m, I became paralyzed from weakness. I couldn't move anything. It was so dark. Quiet. My mind was far away in narcosis world. There was no visual or audio stimulation. I forgot about everything. Then, an instinct, off in the distance, told me that if I didn't keep kicking I would die. So I stretched my arms and I started kicking as fast as I could. I made good progress, still in fairy land, when again my body weakened, and I rested, and now I thought there was no way I would make it back up--my air was fine, the weakness was the problem. There was no weight belt to ditch. Peter, waiting at 25m, was still an eternity away.
"Again, lost in my delusional thoughts, an instinct told me to try again. Try to kick, maybe now the legs will move. And they did. And after what seemed like an eternity, I saw Peter. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt a sense of relief. I kept kickng, but stopped, and stopped again from the whole-body weakness. Now, according to Mike and Pete, I closed my eyes, and stopped one last time, then rapidly kicked the last few meters. I broke the surface and recovered cleanly, giving an okay in just a few seconds. I stared Peter in his right eye, until everything was sharp and clear. I continued breathing, I raised both hands in the air in happiness. Not because I was happy about making the deepest unofficial dive ever, but because I was happy to be alive. The stinger read -88.1m (289ft) (3:14) We all looked at the gauge in disbelief. However, after I told the guys what really happened down there, the mood shifted to one of being thankful."
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