Cayman 2004 -
Freediving World Record Event
Day 8 - Deeper into the blue
From Mandy-Rae
 Today starts off with me waking up to what I think is an empty house. An empty house means that I get up, make breakfast and walk around the house singing No Doubt songs to myself. Then I have to apologize to Tony as I find out that he is trying to sleep in the other room. Kirk and Martin are off bright and early getting some email done. Kirk also has to make sure that our safety diver, Derek Sather from Vancouver, is all set up and that we have everything we need for today's training session.
As soon as everyone is back at the house we load into the van and head off to pick up Doc. From there we go to meet up with Danny and Marnie from Off the Wall Divers who take us out every day for our training sessions.
Today we start using our counter ballast safety system. Essentially, the counterbalance uses weighted ends of the same line fed through pulleys attached to buoys which are kept apart by aluminum arms. Keeping the lines secured and not traveling are opposing climbing clamps, but this is temporary until we mount our new sailing clutches. On either end of the lines we have 40lbs where normally we'd have at least three times that amount of weight on the non-performance line side. This allows the dropping weight to pull the comp line up, bottom plate catching the athlete's lanyard and soon they're assisted in their ascent at around 1.3m/s. Today, we're using equal weight to help make depth adjustments and, if needed, we'll simply pull the lines up by hand.
First diver to go today is Martin. His goal is 87m constant ballast and he does it in a time of 3:00 (1:22 down & 1:38 up) with an amazing amount of ease. His ear is getting better, which is a very good sign, and he doesn't have to pinch his nose at all. Martin just needs to have a few adjustments made to his new wetsuit and he will be unstoppable.
 Next up is me. This is my first free immersion dive and my target is set at 64m. This is a hefty dive goal as it is my first FI dive since last summer. Being out of practice in this discipline, I end up pulling down way too fast and tiring myself out. So I decide to turn at 60m just to make sure that everything goes well and it does. Next time I will slow down and enjoy the dive a bit more instead of the 1:52 (0:52 down & 1:00 up) it takes. I also try out diving with fluid goggles today. I do this mainly because I don't want to get a moustache tan from wearing a mask. I am not sure which I will go with in the end.
Doc is the last to dive. His goal is 25m free immersion which he makes on his third warm-up dive. So Kirk drops the line down a bit more and Doc makes an easy 31m dive! He is progressing very quickly. Martin had better watch out!
After we're all done we head out to grab a late lunch on the beach and review our video of the day. Even though everyone, especially Kirk, is in need of a nap, we go back to the house and start to set up for tomorrow's training session. At this very moment Tony is busy getting a video ready for us to post on the PFD website; Kirk is organizing the safety and setup; and Martin is getting the deeper line prepared. I must say that even though I love Vancouver waters, it is a nice treat to be diving in warm Cayman waters again.
Cheers,
Mandy-Rae
Performance Freediving
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