Once Upon A Dive
Posted By Eric Fattah on 2 January 2006
I kept my posture perfectly inverted, which is rare among monofin divers.
The descent was uneventful until about 25m/82ft. Then I felt a gentle burn in my lungs. This was disastrous. Normally I don't feel anything at all until 45-50m/148-164ft. I had been right in being worried about my CO2, but it was worse than I thought. Nevertheless, I continued descending, and, as physics dictates, the increasing pressure caused the burn to increase and increase. Now the burn was getting bad, and I still hadn't heard the 45m alarm from my Apneist. I knew I was fine as long as I didn't get any contractions on the descent. Soon the alarm sounded, and I put my left hand around the line (arm extended), looked toward my knees, and sank with my eyes closed. As planned, I counted 'one-thousand, two-thousand...' up to seven thousand. Then, according to my math, I should have been able to see the light at the tag. I opened my eyes and sure enough I could see the tag about 5 meters away. I grabbed it and started the ascent. I waited for the nitrogen narcosis, but it never came. Now I was confident. I still hadn't had any contractions, and I was confident I was going to make it. I counted my monofin strokes, and I made at least seven strokes before the first contraction. I did remember to re-inhale from my mask a few times. I had one or two more strong contractions, and then I saw Kirk through the corner of my eye, and Brett was in front of me pointing the digital camera at me. I totally forgot to re-inhale during the last 60 feet. I reached the surface and after a few breaths took my mask off and gave Kirk the 'okay' sign. They video taped the depth gauge and the tag. The dive time was 2:15, one second slower than the 62m dive in the 3mm suit. As I had predicted, the effort and time were the same as a dive 5 meters deeper with the thinner suit, meaning that I lost about 5m in this hybrid suit configuration. After all the others divers dove, and the trimix diver decompressed, he confirmed that there had been no line violations. And that was it, I was the new Canadian constant ballast record holder, beating George Bryan-Orr's previous record of 54m, set in Cayman in November, 1999.
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