Cayman 2004 -
Freediving World Record Event
Day 6 - Mandy & Doc Arrive
 Mandy and Doc arrive in the early afternoon a couple of hours apart. Both have been flying all night, Doc (Dr. George Lopez) from Laguna Beach and Mandy from Vancouver. Although they spent a long night in the air, they were prepped ahead of time to expect a small, fun acclimatization session in the later afternoon.
After picking them up we head off to the north west point of the island near the turtle farm to spend our afternoon off Divetech. In 1996 I helped start up Divetech's Turtle Reef location with partners Dan Hodgins and Nancy Romanica. Our intention was to create something new on island by offering more than just the regular scuba charters. Soon we were offering technical/trimix training, rebreathers and within a year and a half freediving support and training. Divetech has been the epicenter on Cayman for freediving support since their staff is knowledgeable and has the experience to support deep technical dives in an environment far from plunking around the reef. In freediving support you're often under a huge time pressure due to the requirements of the athletes. In blue water with no visual reference except for the single line used by the athlete and working in depths where accurate gas mixing, proper training, appropriate equipment and execution of the plan is crucial there is very little to no room for error.
Mandy riding a scooter |
Kirk with scooter in new suit |
We reach Divetech around 4pm and start getting ourselves organized. First things first: we check out our NEW custom Oceaner Performance Freediving suits. Oceaner Sporting Goods, is based out of Vancouver and has been making high quality dry suits, wetsuits, triathlon and sporting wear for years. We've recently partnered up with them to design and manufacture a line of both recreational and competitive freediving suits called Oceaner Performance Freediving and, based on our trials in Cayman, they'll be starting production within the next couple of months.
We quickly suit up, grab four Seasprint scooters from the shop and proceed to the mini-wall again for some 'wake-up' time for Mandy and Doc. Knowing that they have just flown all night, we don't want to do anything serious, so we do some easy pull downs (free immersion) with short hangs on the line. Mandy is soon pulling off three minute hangs, with Doc working towards two minutes. After about 20 minutes on the mini-wall we decide to take off for the 21m / 70' mooring. We scooter off: four scooters flying in fighter squadron formation with silver and gold suited pilots at the stick :>) Mandy practices some entries and descents with short hangs at the bottom, but is soon worried about a small headache she's developing and so wants to get to the deeper line before quitting time. Could it be the flying, dehydration, seasickness or the neck problem she's been struggling with during the last week?
Soon we head off to the outer part of the deep reef and our 45m / 150' anchored line. Within minutes Mandy is on her way down with Tony playing paparazzi so we can review her technique later. She hits the surface after a 40m / 132' dive in 1:10 and is excited about how it all feels -- except for the onset of bile burps. Guess we know it's seasickness so she'll have to start taking her ginger pills over the next many days :>) Doc's hitting 21m / 70' quite quickly and easily which is a bit of a surprise being that we had only changed his suit, mask and fins after a long night of flying :>) Martin, Tony and I just play around and I do some runs to 50m / 165' with the scooter again and then head off for shore.
We finish up at Divetech and soon all we have on our minds is FOOD!!! We drop the equipment off at the condo, change into some of our new team wear Mandy brought from Vancouver and head off to Eduardo's for a great pasta and seafood meal. Next objective: SLEEP in preparation for our next afternoon of boat training with Marnie and Danny from Off The Wall. These will be the first real targets: for Mandy a 56m constant ballast dive; for Doc a 15m free immersion; and for Martin an 83m constant. Martin's dive to 83m tomorrow will be after his foreshortened 80m free immersion yesterday.
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