The Angels' Story
Posted By Laura Harris on 16 July 2004
Support divers have received criticism in the past over a number of issues. A recurring complaint is of exhaled scuba bubbles interfering with a freedivers vision and performance. A second one relates to the positioning of a safety diver and their distance from the freedivers descent line. Both of these issues have been addressed by the team. Whenever possible we place one of our closed circuit rebreather divers on the bottom plate eliminating bubble intrusion completely. The rest of the team are trained to watch for bubble patterns and move around the line should the water become percolated. We introduced an optimum 2 metre separation between the freedivers descent line and our safety divers (which is in accordance with AIDA guidelines). In addition, the support team are briefed to remain discreet and unobtrusive.
Target depths are determined to a greater extent by the visibility so that at every point during a freedive, the athlete will be in view of at least one safety diver. Determining where to place each safety diver is logistically, the most complex aspect of what we do. The team dive plan to cover the UK competition could only be finalized the night before the big event, after registration when we received the athletes subscribed depths. Although we always have a provisional plan this inevitably changes as there are so many variables. We have to take into account the individual abilities of each of the 19 support divers, their rig set-up, experience at depth, gas preferences, ascent profiles and decompression obligations. Divers are then rotated in smaller teams, timed to descend (to the second) by a Dive Marshal to their own target depth, where they will cover a predetermined number of athletes. Competitors are usually given a 5 minute ‘top time’, which means we also have to wait for 5 minutes between freediver sightings. Clock watching becomes second nature. Staying focused is paramount, patiently anticipating the subsequent contestant while all the time trying to block out the cold that seeps in irrespective of thermal layering. Sure the adrenaline pumps, but when you are stationary, holding a depth for minute after minute, the big chill bites.
Gas choices vary from diver to diver. The shallow team are able to take advantage of an EAN 32% or 36% blend. Diving on air (EAN 21%) provides the mid-range team with the greatest flexibility, allowing divers to swap around at the last moment should a problem arise. Most of us choose to perform accelerated deco on a rich 60% or 80% Nitrox blend in the shallows. Once a safety diver drops below 45m the dangers of gas toxicity become significant and trimix comes into its own. All of us dive with some redundant gas to encourage self-sufficiency and because the cold has in the past led to free-flow incidents.
As a safety diver it is imperative to remain as mobile and streamlined as the dive allows. Rapid response during a rescue scenario impacts the outcome for the freediver so being encumbered with side mounts and excess gear is discouraged. Staging gas is one option we have successfully embraced, in particular as we don’t have currents or tides to contend with. This has helped our mid-range team especially to lighten their gas load as these are the depths most of the training dives have occurred in. Strobes allow us to keep a visual on each other when visibility is poor and to keep a track of where our deep guys are.
