Constant Ballast World Championships August 29-September
4, 2005
Update one - August
22 - CB World Championships
Today is our third day in St. Jean Cap-Ferrat or
Ville Franche Sur Mer, which basically is 20-40 minutes
East of Nice in a nice little bay area. It's a very
beautiful bay with high mountain walls that surround
the bay like amphitheatre seating. In the bay you see
all sorts of boats, super yachts and a cruise ship.
Our travels here are never easy with the long flights
and it was only today that we actually felt like ourselves.
The first day was spent orientating ourselves and getting
the hotel room organized. Next job was to find a grocery
store and then after that internet. We have no phones
in our hotel and there's also no internet connection
so a short walk to the main waterfront area and we
can source out a wi-fi is you're lucky. Sorry if we
have several days of no communication because of this.
Today, August 22nd, was our second day in the water.
Sunday we were awoken by heavy rain, thunder and lightening
so the water during our afternoon training session
was cloudy as the fresh and saltwater mixed. The waters
are beautiful although not Caribbean hot. Surface temperature
is 23C with a small thermocline at 30m. However by
50m you can subtract 10C from the warm surface temp
with a sudden wall of cold hitting you. At depth the
visibility is good enough you can read your gauge.
We've hired Jacques Delmarre and his Joker (brand
name) boat a Coaster 650 which is a ridged hull inflatable
that can take 12 people. From shore to 120m is approximately
a 5 min excursion. Jacques is a great guy and very
knowledgeable of the local waters. He's been involved
in freediving with the Nice group for many years and
his brother Jean was one the world record holders in
static apnea in the mid-90's.
We're training using a counter balance system with
plate/camera mount. We've brought enough system to
accommodate 110m of depth and help 12 people train
with competition line and three warm-up floats. The
next week we'll see us filling the boat with friends
coming out to train and we look forward to the camaraderie
in the water. Matt and Jade will join us tomorrow.
Now, because this is a competition, it'll be somewhat
difficult for us to be exactly accurate on the depths
we're achieving in training so please accept our apologies
for being vague. Too many friends of friends of our
competitors are on these lists. However, Martin has
quickly hit the 90m+ mark here and Mandy, while still
in Vancouver training (she joins us this Saturday the
27th) is working in the 70m+ range in 5mm of neoprene.
We're all very excited with how things are progressing
and are looking forward to pulling out the big guns
Sept 1st.
Having said that, the competition this year will be
fierce as this is the 1st AIDA Individual Constant
Ballast World Championships and many of our competition
have been training very hard. For us, the busy clinic
schedule after Cayman and the longer than anticipated
recovery time from Cayman has us less prepared than
we'd like to be. Martin joined us in Canada for some
cold water adaptation on the wreck trip and this will
prove helpful.
Today we picked Doc up at the airport. Doc's joining
us for support and some of his own training time. Doc
and his company, ICU Medical, have become the biggest
supporters and believers in Team PFI and we truly cherish
their support. Doc will do some basic training as we
look forward to our next Cayman adventure this March
6th - April 7th, 2006. Not only do we thank Doc but
we also would like to thank Dr. Robert Scott of Docs
Proplugs and our newest Team PFI sponsor and also to
TP of the PF for their support. You know who you are
:>)
We're sad that we won't see Doc's wife Dianna joining
us here as she would have loved Ville Franche. We know
she'll be following us and Doc's training from Laguna
and we promise to bring home a trophy or two :>)
That's all for now. More details, pictures and hopefully
some streaming video by weeks end.
Sincerely,
Kirk, Martin, Mandy & Doc
Performance Freediving
Team
Doc and Juliana suit up |
Jacques Delmarre's Joker Boat Coaster 650 |
Kirk practices constant no-fins |
Kirk and Juliana discuss her dive |
Recovering the counter balance |
Organizing the counter balance system |
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