The Dolphins, the Shark, and the Evil Sea Monkeys : Finis
Posted By Todd Storey on 15 October 2006
Choking The Monkey
Before heading out, Kirk gave us a bit of a talk on dive psychology, and the evil monkeys came up again. He suggested that we grab the evil monkey, yank it off of our shoulder, and twist it's neck. A rather violent image, but effective.
I was a bit somber and quiet on the boat, standing at the railing, looking out at the open ocean and letting the wind wash over me, when Paul sidled up to me. He seemed to know exactly what was going on in my head, and reassured me that everything was going to be fine. "Just relax and have fun today, that's what we're here for. Don't worry about setting a new depth record, just work on technique." He even talked to me about Ohio, and he actually knew where Youngstown is. He also reassured me by telling me that this didn't have to be my last day with Performance Freediving after all, that I could come back and dive with them again when they were back in Miami, just doing the boat dives. That put my mind at ease a bit, now knowing that today didn't have to be last day, just the last day before an extended break, perhaps.
Kicking the Habit
All throughout the session, Kirk, Mandy, and Paul took turns swimming among us with two underwater video cameras, filming our dives. Today THE instructor, Kirk, was on my line. Right off the bat he noticed that I was a bit tense on my free immersions, and advised me to relax. Pull down, relax, equalize. Pull down, relax, equalize. Relax, relax, RELAX... I followed his instructions and found that I had an easier time equalizing, since I wasn't bolting for the plate.
The longer descent times starting playing with my mind (cue evil monkey) and I came up rather quickly once I hit the deepest point of my dive.
"What was your static?" Kirk asked me. I told him. "You should be able to do a 1:30 dive easily, then. Just relax." He also noticed my demon: my kicking. As I surfaced from a dive, he said to me "You have a pretty good dolphin kick when you come up. Tell you what; go over to that line, nobody's on it, and just go down a few meters with a dolphin kick, let me see it." I came up, he pointed at me, and said "Dolphin kick. DEFINITELY dolphin kick." He'd found the solution to my kick problem - going back to the kick I should've been doing all along!
A few dives later I noticed an odd, grayish, fish checking out my legs. "What is THAT?" I asked. Kirk glanced down, lifted his head, popped out his snorkel, and said "Remora!" I guess I looked like I was in need of a cleaning! Or maybe it was just the silver wetsuit.
By the end of the day I'd managed to hit 43'/13.3m - nowhere near the 20m I was hoping for, but by now all that mattered was technique. In a way, it was a new record for me: the deepest freedive I'd ever done in the ocean.
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