Cayman 2005 - Freediving World Record Event
Day 23 - April 5 - You're a winner!
From Mandy-Rae:
5:45 a.m. The D3 alarms start going off, letting us know that
it is time to wake up and start preparing for the dives ahead.
While I am making my Cream of Wheat Kirk heads off to check emails,
Martin takes a shower, and Doc groans that we get up too early.
Same old, same old. But then Martin walks into the kitchen and
asks if he can borrow one of my sticky heat packs as his back is out.
Turns out that his C4's are a bit heavier than he thought
and as he tried to lift them off his bed last night,
he did something bad to his back.
It's only 6 a.m. and already one person is out for the day.
So the rest of us carry on as normal. On the way to West Bay Dock
to meet Danny from Off the Wall Divers, the radio station asks
its morning trivia question,
"What is the name of the 1990s Steven Spielberg movie about dinosaurs?"
I know it's Jurassic Park and decide to phone in.
What do you know, I am the first caller in and win the
prize ... two t-shirts and VIP passes to a local bar on Friday night.
Records start on Friday so I won't be using the VIP passes.
But for me it's a good way to start off the day.
At the dock we lose our second person of the day, Goh. He
decides that he should go back home and get the next video
ready instead of hanging out with us. So off he goes. Doc
lays down at one end of the dock to do a little visualization
before we board the boat. Today will be a new PB for him if
he makes the dive. As for me, I will be doing one Free Immersion
dive to 74m and then a shallow Variable Ballast dive to 95m. The boat seems
strangley empty today without Martin and Goh. Kirk, Peter, Spence,
Dave, Bill, and Danny get to work setting up the sled and counter
balance system while Doc and I chill out up front. They are getting
really fast at getting everything set up. These boys work very
hard to make sure that we have everything we need for a good,
safe dive. It is amazing how many people it takes to make one of
these events happen. We are very lucky with the people we have helping us.
I am first up. The winds are still really strong today, which
means that we have waves crashing over us while we try to breathe
up. I just keep telling myself that these are perfect training
conditions as it means that on game day, no matter what the
conditions, I will know that I can do the dive. After I finish
my facial immersion, one pull down and one negative I am off
to the boat to put on goggles and gloves. Tom comes around
to help me over to the line and I wait there for a couple of
minutes while the safety divers do final checks on each other.
Then Kirk starts the 5 minute countdown. My goal on this dive is
to speed it up a bit, as the 72m dive took me 2:55. All the
way down I concentrate on the timing of my pulls. Soon I hear
Bill and Spence cheering me on. They are getting louder and
louder down there. I love it and it makes me smile. I hit the
bottom and start making my way back up through the calls of
encouragement.
All of a sudden Kirk and Tom are in front of
me and I know that I am at 30m. I give Kirk a little jester
with my hand to let him know all is well and then suddenly I'm at the
surface. I do my recovery breaths, then we all
cheer that I just completed 74m with ease. All the work I did
on my arms before getting here is paying off as they feel so strong.
I check my dive time only to see that instead of getting faster
I slowed down. Total dive time was 3:09 making it my longest dive ever!
Next up is Doc. He has gotten his warm-ups down and is ready to
go as soon as I am up. This is important, as the longer we take
between divers the longer our safety diver's deco time gets.
Kirk starts Doc on his 5 minute countdown. Doc looks very relaxed
and in his element. We can all see that this will be a good dive.
Zero is called and after Doc takes his final breath Danny releases
the sled and Doc starts to drop into the blue. We can feel the
sled hit bottom and are waiting with baited breath for his
return. Soon we see Tom, Kirk and Doc ascending. They break
the surface, Doc does his recovery breaths takes his mask off
and tells us that he is OK and did hit bottom. 57 meters, it's a new
personal best! And it looked so easy from where I was.
Later we hear that at about 20m Doc started strumming air guitar
to Kirk and Tom on the way up. Can you say 60m???
After Doc's dive I got on the sled for a trial dive to 95m. I am
backing off and trying some new techniques and suit combinations.
On this dive I wear my 3mm suit instead of 7mm and make my
breathe up more relaxed. All goes really well and other than
my arms being a bit tired (having just done 74m FI) I think it is
a successful experiment.
Back on shore we stop off for a quick lunch and then it's
off to the airport to pick up Tony M. Tomorrow our judges,
Bill and Nicolas arrive. Each day brings more friends and
freedivers who are coming down to lend their support and good cheer.
Only one training day left, but I think that we are ready to
break some records. Stay tuned for the big stuff!
Cheers,
Mandy-Rae
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