The Mermaid Diaries - Volume One
Posted By Sam Kirby on 22 August 2005
As in London we started with Static, again limiting the maximum times. This worked well but I did have to race around the pool a bit to catch a view of everyone and see how they all worked together. As before, people were mostly supportive and encouraging of each other, and genuinely so. It was clear from the start that it would be very hard to pick one or two winners.
Dynamic gave a bit more away but with so many in the pool, Franck, Ed and I were wearing ourselves out racing up and down watching everyone. By now it was almost ten o’clock at night so I have no idea where their energy came from. One thing that was really noticeable is that when you ask someone to do a Dynamic swim with minimal instruction on how, they tear along at a rate of knots! I felt for the buddies on the surface, frantically trying to keep up snorkelling above them.
Eventually we realised that this was not going to work from a selection point of view. A whole shoal of women were tearing up and down the pool and Franck, Ed and I had no idea who was who! We got everyone back to the shallows, had them do a dynamic four at a time and safetied them ourselves so we could watch more carefully – oh yes, and told them all to try slowing down! This helped immensely and we could see who was streamlined, who was clumsy, who was racing to get it done, who was calm and looked like they had loads left in them, and quite simply who was “born in the water”.
Sadly we didn’t have time to play with monofins this time around, but we did fit in a few rounds of snorkel hockey – a lot more crazy this time with teams of six. No one had every played it before and they had ten seconds to work out a game plan, so you can imagine the sight in the pool. The local scuba club had luckily got out of the pool by this time so we had the whole space to ourselves – and lots of confused looking scubie guys wondering what the hell was going on in there as the pool whirled and waved around the fins of eleven desperate females!
And suddenly, round one was over. We had met all our mermaids and put them through their paces. It was time to go home and think it through. At the start of each session I had asked each girl to hold up a sign with her name on and taken a photo – this was rather embarrassing to do at the time, but proved invaluable later. By the time Franck, Ed and I left the Bristol pool we were starving and tired and in no frame of mind to make a decision, so we postponed it for a day or so. I then emailed them the photos so they could remember who was who and asked them for their views before they heard mine. Again we all agreed on the final choices, but with so many in the pool it was not as clear cut as London. A very tricky decision!
The best, and worst thing about the Mermaid Challenge so far has been that without exception, every girl that has entered has shown serious promise as a freediver, even those who did not make it as far as a pool session. To have to whittle that list down has been really hard and has been based on so many factors. Of course we are looking at performance but we also have to bear in mind that most of the girls who entered have had no training whatsoever. Whoever is chosen will need to be able to make it to Chepstow for training, be available to come to the Worlds next year, be able to cope with the UK waters all year round, not be too busy at school/Uni/work to put their heart into it, fit well with the rest of the SaltFree mob, and talk to the press about what they are doing – there are quite a few boxes to tick!
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