World Record Diary -- Part II
Posted By Tanya Streeter on 3 July 2003
Monday, June 23rd, 2003
After our usual start (breakfast at 7:30pm – all I have is a croissant and a protein shake) we were on our way to the dive site just after 8am. Despite beautifully calm seas and light wind inside the reef, the boat was subjected to heavy swinging on the mooring. As I did my warm-up dives the descent rope went from dead straight to bowed as the boat went from side to side at the surface, and waves reaching a meter high sloshed over our heads periodically. Not exactly ideal conditions, but not so bad as to cancel the dive. Every time we have dived out there little fish join us, swimming under our bodies as we breathe at the surface. Today it was just one fish about the size of my hand, which was pretty unusual, but it’s nice to have something to watch out there in the big blue. Of course, I named him Nemo!! My sinuses seem to have cleared up and I had no problems during the warm-up dives at all.
We were joined by our underwater photographer today, Philip Shearer from Big Blue Unlimited here on Provodenciales. Alas, his camera flooded horribly almost as soon as he hit the water, so it will be a couple of days until he can shoot anything below the surface. Together with Phil who dived without his camera to 35m, John and Carol were situated at 80m (the bottom of the rope), Ariane at 50m and Mike at 20m. Nigel was our Captain today, with the responsibility of pulling the clip that releases my sled for the descent – he said it was hard for him to do and gave him a shiver down his spine. I hit the bottom easily, still not needing to slow the sled during the descent, and returned to the surface comfortably. I still feel a bit like I am finding my groove down there yet, and not quite in my routine. The dive took 2 minutes and 13 seconds which I feel is a bit long for me so I think I was a bit too relaxed leaving 80m and should perhaps kick a little stronger in the first 20m of the ascent. I stopped pulling or kicking on the way up at about 10m and let my buoyancy take me the rest of the way. It gave Mike a bit of a scare, but he just watched Paul and I glide to the surface and afterwards understood to expect that on my dives because it saves energy and oxygen.
After helping to return the sled and ballast to the boat I took the decompressing safety divers a drink each at their 10m stops and then took a 10 minute rest on the boat because I wanted to see how deep I could go without any gear apart from a mask and depth gauge (Constant Weight Without Fins). The water feels pretty good without a wetsuit (about 82 degrees F, almost 30 degrees C at the surface) and my favourite way to be in the water is just with a mask and bikini anyway. My plan is to do a dive like this every day that I do a Variable Ballast training dive, just to see if I can reach a respectable depth in case I decide to also set a World Record in this discipline, which was introduced at the beginning of this year. I know nothing about how to do this, other than to use breaststroke throughout the dive, so I will only take small steps in progressing deeper. Today I entertained the divers with a little dive to 23m/75ft, which I really enjoyed a lot. It really is free to be under the water so deep with so little gear! I am sure that dives over 30m are very challenging, but for now it was just fun. In the future, as I get deeper, I will use the proper dive rope to do this on, because the deco line is at the front of the boat and exposed to the full force of the waves and the most vertical movement as the boat rides them. Also, I don’t have a float set up on the rope, so I use my toes to grip it and stay stable for a 5 minute breathe-up.
Back on shore the team ate lunch together and then went our separate ways – the mixed gas divers to blend their gasses for Wednesday’s dive to 85m, Phil to see what can be salvaged from his camera, Mike to walk the dogs at the home he is house-sitting, Nigel to take a group of Beaches guests out for a snorkel, Paul to communicate with the outside world electronically, and this PRINCESS to bed for a nap!! Now can you see why I feel pangs of guilt??!!
This evening started with a reception around one of the many pools here, where the Managers of the many departments introduce themselves to newly arriving guests. I have been asked to be present at these receptions each week to talk with the guests and autograph photocards for them. It seemed to go well – we ran out of cards twice! – and many people mentioned they had just seen me on Letterman or The Discovery Health Channel.
We had dinner at Le Petit Chateau, an adults-only restaurant in the French Village and then headed to bed. Some time in the night, around 2am, I have a phone interview to do for a live morning TV show in the UK, so we thought we would get to bed early! As I write this it’s almost 10pm and Paul is already asleep. He works very hard all day coordinating everything, and spends just as much time in the water as I do (personally I think his job is much harder than mine) so it’s hardly surprising he is so tired! Hopefully he will sleep through my interview and I will be able to get to sleep when it’s done. I probably wont even open my eyes! But whatever happens, we will be up at 7am to do some static training in the morning……..goodnight!
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