Cayman
2006 - March 5-10, 2006
We're back!
Introducing the gang:
For the first couple weeks this is the group that
is staying in one condo at
Coconut Bay in N.E. Point of Grand Cayman.
Kirk Krack: aka The Big Cheese - Kirk is the trainer/coach,
organizer and really makes everything possible.
Martin Stepanek: The sick Athlete
Doc Lopez: Athlete
Jill Yoneda: Chef and EMT
Grant Graves: Video man
Linden Wolbert: Video man's assistant for a week
Traveling to Cayman
One of the hardest parts of these record attempts
is getting all the gear to the Cayman Islands. Sat
evening March 4th, Kirk, Jill and I met up at the
Vancouver to start our journey. Between the
three of us we had 7 checked bags and five of those
bags were over 70lbs (one almost 100lbs). We
lucked out and got a very nice check in clerk at
the Alaska Airlines desk. He was
joking around with us and didn't even mention the
extra bags or ask to
weight them while next to us a guy was being told
that he was over his limit
due to a second pair of ski boots. Man were we lucky! Next
we met up with Grant Graves at LAX where we helped
him check in his six bags and take some
of his six carry on bags. It is true; men pack more stuff then women! We
arrived in Grand Cayman on Sunday March 5th as well
as Doc Lopez and Martin
Stepanek (who combined had another 6 checked and
overweight bags). We made
it for the third year in a row.
 And it all beings...
Everyday my alarm goes off around 6:40am as we meet
our boat at 8am. I
get up to wake up everyone else. Martin is
already in the shower loosening his stiff muscles;
Doc is just starting to rise out of bed. I
head to the top floor where I wake up Grant, Linden
and Jill. Jill by the way decided to
make the upstairs closet her bedroom for the next
6 weeks. Strange
girl. Actually it's not as weird as it sounds. The
closet is a large walk in closet that we moved a
twin mattress into. It was her choice; we didn't
make her sleep in the closet I swear!
Our new boat this year is a 42ft Newton owned by
Stingray Adventures. On
board we meet Duncan (boat and condo owner) and Leslie
(boat captain). We
dearly miss Danny from Off the Wall Divers but we
needed to move to a larger
boat. Leslie took us to a local wreck where
we got in and did some long hangs, negative dives
and just played around, getting used to Cayman waters.
It was a great way to start off 6 weeks of diving.
The next four days we started our real training. Well most of us did.
Martin arrived in Cayman a bit congested and it got
worst so unfortunately he hasn't been in the water
expect for the first play day. He does seem
to be on the mend now so we should see him back
in the water soon.
 Doc is on target having done 30m, 35m, 38m, and 41m. He
is trying out a new style of Free Immersion where
he is going down foot first. He has also
decided to wear fluid goggles and nose clip instead
of a mask. He is still
working out the finer details of all these new techniques
but things seem to
be working for him. A few more days of Free
Immersion training and he will start doing some Variable
Ballast dives on the sled (aka the Yellow Beast).
Having not done a constant dive since the World
Championships in Nice
(Vancouver waters are too cold for me in the winter),
I started my training
with a 56m dive. All was good so the next two
days I did two dives, one to
60m and the next to 65m. The fourth day I did
a variable dive to 71m just
to get used to the depth and pressure. Man that was fun! It
helped turn
around a day that started off bad. Someone
stole two of my D3's and my nose
clip from a bag I left on our patio to dry. Thankfully
they left me my
lanyard and fluid goggles. What a pain though.
While Doc and Kirk are out training today, March
11, I am taking a rest day
and updating the web site for all of you.
  Every
other year we ate out for almost every meal which
gets very tiresome.
No I am not spoiled; you really end up wanting to
just stay home to eat.
This year we have Jill with us as EMT and chef. Her
food has been fabulous!
I have taught her how to make our favorite breakfast,
Cream of Wheat with walnuts and bananas. Normally
we loose weight during these events but I think this
year we may all gain weight. The only strange
thing with Jill is that she wants to give massages
with KY warming lotion. No takers yet but
that could change ;-)
Jill got a night off of cooking last night because
Doc took us all out for dinner at Ragazzi's. They
have amazing spaghetti bolognaise and a spinach salad
to die for and boy did we earn it. It took
us 2hrs to get there!
Normally that is how long it takes you to drive
around the whole island. Turns out someone tried
to rob
the Cayman National Bank and shot a couple
people. So the Cayman police set up a road
block and checked each car with machine guns drawn. On the bright side the
seven of us got to know each other better through
2hrs of mind teasers. See hypoxia doesn't cause
brain
damage!
Tomorrow after training we are all taking in an afternoon
at Stingray City and Rum Point. Stay tuned
for more updates as things start heating up here
in Cayman!
21 days till record attempt #1 on April 1!
Cheers!
Mandy-Rae
View Sink Faze photo gallery!
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