Record day (updated 9th Oct. 2008)

The day of the first attempt has come. After my routine warmup, Alex is swimming me over towards the sled, when we hear there are some major discussions about the sled setup. Although discussed the night before, there seems to be a need for a camera on the sled and not only one at the bottom.  The mounting of the camera caused some serious entanglement during training already, therefore we agreed not to use it. After this misunderstanding it took another 2 hours until the rope was changed and the sled was ready. Alex and others were trying to convince me to abord the attempt, but after going through all that preparation, I wanted to try an attempt even though I wasn't very optimistic to achieve a positive outcome. I said to myself, at least it will be a good rehearsal of the record setup and I will have an other training dive, or even be very lucky and make a new WR.

Well, after floating 4 hours in the water, I had no idea of how my dive wil go. I had troubles equalizing and decided to turn early - at 131m, 10 meters sort of a new World Record. Again, there ware some safety issues with the oxygen setup.

The next record attempt was scheduled the following day at high noon. First the organization delayed and then canceled it early afternoon do to waves and wind being to strong for the small competition boat. The wether in the evening would have been perfect, but organization didn't consider that option.

As I expected the same and more troubles, the following days,  a cancelation seemed the best option. After all the training and dedication, it was very disappointing, having to take this decision.

Day 10

It seems to be better to do one more test before the attempt, to verify my training status: checkt...OK.
Before the 1st oficial World Record attempt.

Day 9

I have decided to warm-up with the use of an EQUEX, which allows me to do much more extreme exhale dives, to accelerate my blood-shift.
Training results are great!

Day 8

Alex has bilt the "retro sled" from a piece of wood found on the beach and built a sled from it, in order to alter my training, which is manly exhale dives in variable (going down with the retro sled and pulling up).

Day 7

Alex (www.trygons.com) is coaching me, however the training results are not increasing at the desired rate! Alternative training methods have to be found!

Day 6

Training results are better!

Day 5

No training because of very strong winds and waves.

Day 4

The training results are slowly increasing

Day 3

We set the line for the sled to 109 meters target depth for the day. The water was dead calm again with endless underwater visibility - one could clearly see the counterweight hanging at 40 meters. A little current was present, which was not the case the previous day.

Unfortunately I got a muscle cramp on the start of the sled dive. Nevertheless I continued with the dive. But what started unfortunate, continued. Being rather unrelaxed I had troubles equalizing ant aborted the dive at 107m. Yes just 2 meters from the target, but I had no clue how deep I was, as I didn't set any depth alarms. When I left the sled at the bottom to commence my ascent, I got tangled with the safety-lanyard. Pulling the quick-release was unsuccessful, but after a few hectic attempts, it came loose - so no work for the safety divers.

Tonight we are going to make some modifications on the sled and the safety-lanyard, to make sure this will never happen again!

Day 2

Time to make my first test ride with Stavro's sled, which I wil be using for the Variable Weight World Record attempt.

The water temperature is 24 -25 °C and the visibility is unbelievable 40 meters!

My training my warmup was pretty much like my training on the first day. Followed a smooth sled dive to 85 meters.

It the evening we all had dinner at our hotel. The meal was 2 groupers, caught by Stavros the previos day.

Day 1

The training of the mediterranean International Freedving Competition has begun. We are all based in a very nice little village called Sougia, which is situated in the southwestern part of Crete, Greece.

Not all the athletes are here yet, but it was a very nice surprise to see many familiar faces and a few more are expected during the next days.

The anchoring lines for the permanent dive spot were dropped today, followed by a short training session.

My training consisted of:

The first objective is to get into the dive-mode, mainly reducing the heart rate. At this early stage of the training this takes a lot longer then when the training has progressed.
4 dives to 10 meters and waiting there for a while, increasing the dive-times from 2 - 4 minutes. Surface rest 3 minutes.

The second exercise is to simulate high pressure on the lungs, stretching the diaphragma, inducing and training the blood-shift.
4 empty lung (full exhale plus reverse packing) dives to 7 meter, increasing to 13 meters. Diaphragm stretching for 10 seconds at depth. Surface rest 2 minutes.

After "work" we all had diner at the beach.