World Record Diary -- Part V
Posted By Tanya Streeter on 19 July 2003
Thursday, July 3rd, 2003
We have had 7 good training dives, so I guess it was about time we had one that wasn’t so good! The sea at the dive mooring site was pretty harsh but my warm-up dives went fine. The boat was pitching a lot and the sled was consequently doing the same. During the 10 minute count-down my preparation breathing wasn’t going well. To compensate for it I made the mistake of flushing too much which isn’t a good thing to do when you also need to do some packing for deep dives. Today we were headed for 100m, which is a depth I don’t normally have problems equalizing to, but with Variable Weight dives I like having very full lungs because the buoyancy assists me on the ascent. During my last couple of flushes I began to tingle. After only a few packs, I began to feel lightheaded so I gave the signal to release the sled. Often I find that the immediate hydrostatic pressure of the first few meters helps to ease tingling. But it didn’t happen that was this time and I felt a strong LMC during the first 10m of the descent. So, not knowing how that might affect the ascent from 100m, I aborted the dive. It bothered me a lot that the safety team had dived for nothing but John made me feel a lot better about aborting the dive when he finally came up from his deco. He told me that all of the safety divers know they can call off the dive if they don’t feel comfortable with the situation for some reason, and the reason they feel comfortable is because they know that nobody else on the team, me included, would be angry if they did. Therefore, they would never be upset if I called off the dive. It helps a lot to have the team working so well together and respecting each person’s role so much. They all give me a lot of strength.
I decided to not go for a Constant Weight Without Fins training dive so Gilles used the opportunity to get on the sled and do a 60m Variable Weight dive. He did very well, especially considering the conditions out there. For the first time he used the noseclip instead of a mask and enjoyed the sensation of blindness. I have always believed he has a lot of potential as a freediver and now he is fired up to test himself which is great. We’ll see if he can do a good static apnea dive tomorrow in the pool…..it builds mental strength quickly!
Despite the chop on the surface, beneath the waves it was the usual beautiful blue. And today we were visited VERY close up by another nice wahoo. Then a couple of monstrous barracuda came right up to my fin-tips during my warm-up dives. Today John and his team of safety divers tested some underwater communications masks and I have a sneaky feeling the fish were attracted to the hydro-ariel that dangled from the boat. Just as long as no big sharks get curious……!
Paul and I couldn’t sleep at all last night – it was as if we knew today’s dive wouldn’t go well. Even after a couple of cat-naps in the afternoon I was still exhausted after the morning static apnea, but for some reason my mind was too awake for sleep to come. And I was starting to get a sore throat. Suspiciously, Kevin didn’t join us today (Nigel did a great job with the count-down in his place) because he has a cold – it’s going around the island apparently – so I think he might have very kindly passed it on to me! Paul has an infection in both ears so I think it’s time for a trip to the doc! It always happens to both of us during training so I guess it’s a good thing that we are getting it out of the way early on!
We had a team of local media out on the boat today so it seems we’ll be getting some media. It’s important to me that the people of these islands feel a part of what we are attempting to do with this event and I am writing a weekly diary for the local paper and providing them with fun snapshots of our adventures.
I keep forgetting to mention that JoJo the friendly dolphin of these waters has paid us a visit a couple of times. Unfortunately he doesn’t come all the way out to the dive site with us (it’s too deep and he is a chicken!) but some mornings he swims around the boat as we leave the dock. It’s a nice distraction to see him chasing the boat, even if he gives up after only a couple of minutes.
In the evening I was up on stage again to talk about the event and invite guests to join us on the boat. After such a bad night’s sleep last night and a pretty bad day, I was in bed by 9:30pm and probably asleep 2 minutes later!
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