Vertical Blue 2008 - It's Happening Beneath the Surface - Part 2
Posted By Peter Scott on 6 April 2008
Leo, meanwhile, had moved from Japan to Maui in 1981 and took up spear fishing. In 1991, Jacques Mayol spoke at a conference about dolphins in Hawaii. Leo went to the reception and met Mayol, and more importantly, he met Megumi.
Now, Leo is a US citizen and lives in Kona, where he trains with Andy Norlander, Bill Graham, and Annabel Briseno. He runs a tour guiding operation with trips to Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, introducing visitors to the volcanic features, the eight climate zones on the mountain, and the stars at night. Leo also showed me a beautiful hand-made monofin that he made from scratch, telling me that the design took him over ten years to refine. It is a thing of beauty made with more than just a desire for the ultimate fin. It is a piece of art.
Megumi started teaching freediving at her scuba shop in Japan. In 1999, a young college student by the name of Ryuzo came to visit Megumi and asked to be taught how to freedive. Now Megumi teaches about one hundred freediving students each year. And she and Leo has recently become Watsu (water massage) practitioners, combining underwater and body awareness disciplines into one program.
It seems that it is no accident that Ryuzo shares the same poise and mental control that was so evident in Megumi and Leo. William Trubridge told me he was impressed by how prepared and collected all the Japanese divers have been at Vertical Blue.
Tomorrow, both Megumi and Leo look to extend their depths, "to better ourselves," in their own quietly confident way.
Update: Both Leo and Megumi made their dives (unofficially). Leo hung on to a tricky recovery at the surface and had white cards for his 72 metre free immersion dive. Megumi tried a faster style and made her CWT dive to 54m blazingly fast.
Eric Fattah: The Man Who Wants To Sink The Whole Way Down
Yesterday, it was 58 metres; today, 62 metres. Not only is Eric is starting to amaze the other freedivers at the Blue Hole, he is also finally proving that his theories have been sound all along.
"I'm finally accepting that I can sink for so long and still make it back up."
Today, William Trubridge was the primary safety diver for Eric. William looked impressed when Eric finished his surface protocol after a deep hook breath and then swam back to shore as if he had done an easy recreational dive.
A lot of the things Eric has done in the last few years has become second nature to him, although they still tend to surprise those who hear of them: FRC diving, no suit diving in cold water, apnea mountain hiking, his exacting equalizing and mouth fill methods (and standards)- but I can tell he is very happy finally to bring them all together with these dives. Eric is someone who gets excited most by discovering new paradigms in training and diving. He'll try anything ten times to be sure and to extremes that would frighten most people away.
Just during his few days in the Bahamas, Eric has rid himself of most of his gear. He makes his dives with only my new Chen Bin monofin, a snorkel, a foam noodle to support him on the surface. It looks very weird to see him without the usual gear on. For sure the Blue Hole has given him an idea venue for trying out the minimalist approach.
I asked him how today's 62 metre dive compared to the previous dive and he replied that it felt no different at all. The only thing was that he was even more blood shifted so that he couldn't kick as quickly on the way up from the bottom.
There is also something a little incomprehensible about these dives that most people won't know. Eric has been working hard on Liquivision Products, Inc., the company he runs in Vancouver with his wife, Margaret Malewski. So hard that he and I have only been diving once or twice a month this winter. He has been working harder than he ever has before and has been sick for many weeks before arriving at the Blue Hole.
This is Eric Fattah at his baseline. And today he had a full mouth fill of air when he made his turn at the bottom.
Tomorrow, he takes a rest day, and then after that, we may see him try 67 metres in constant weight FRC. That depth has special meaning for him.
Back in September 2000, Eric dove to 67 metres in 2'20" and it was one of the most important dives of his career.
"It changed my relationship with the ocean," he remembers. "It was important in several ways. It was the deepest monofin dive to my knowledge at the time. I asked Claude Chapuis just before the dive what the deepest dive was. Both he and Pierre Frolla had done 65 metres that year with monofins, since several French divers were using them. Going deeper than 60 metres was something that you did with special equipment, like scleral lenses, not with a stock mask and snorkel, and never in competition. We also had poor conditions in Vancouver, compared to the clear Mediterranean Sea. Cold, dark and bad visibility. I wore a 6 mm top and 3mm pants. I hadn't trained for years and years like those divers had. It didn't make any sense."
Sitting on the rocks on the shoreline of his dive spot, Eric stared in the water and asked himself what it all meant. Only 14 metres away from the world record at the time, he realized that with a few changes it could be within reach.
Dean's Blue Hole has seen the deepest FRC dive to his knowledge and Eric is wondering what comes next.
Next article: In-depth interview with William Trubridge about his life aquatic; Natalia Avseenko - the Singing Mermaid; and Frank Pernett, who knows what his residual volume is, do you know yours?
- Bookmark with :
- what are these?
