Enjoy Freediving Blog

This post have been “stolen” from Roberta and Matt’s blog: http://robertaandmattfreedive.blogspot.com/

Mask Tan” is a hazard that most freedivers face. Spending so much time on the surface, we are exposed to a lot of sunlight: however, only select parts of our bodies are exposed, so some weird tanlines result. The most common pattern is that of the eyes cheeks staying pale where they are covered by the face mask, while the rest of the face achieves a deep tan.

So, being the competitive guys that we are, a mask tan competition has developed. I submit photographic documentation of the first week of the contest:

 William Winram and Herbert Nitsch were nice enough to lend us their spear fishing gear, so we could go out and have some fun. We have now gone spear fishing twice so far and both trips have brought home dinner.

Yesterday we went out spear fishing after saftying the women’s constant weight competition. We were joined by the German freediver Heidi and her husband Mark. We started out from the beach, which is across the street from our house, and swam out to find something to catch. 

We hadn’t been swimming for to long before spotting the eagle ray shown in the video below.

After about 45 minutes I saw Martin go down and shot his spear into a small hole in the coral. When I dove down I could see the antennas from the large lobster he just shot. I went into our floating bucket to get the glow we brought so I could help him with the spiny catch. When he pulled out the spear and lined up for my camera, the lobster twisted so much that the spear tip twisted off. Martin let go of the lobster and went down for the spear tip, because we borrowed this gear and didn’t want to loose it. You can see this on the video and I am happy to report that we found the tip, and I was able to catch the wounded lobster again by hand and but it into the bucket.

After this catch we saw a small Black tip shark, which came around to see if there were anything it could eat. Unfortunately I ran out of battery and couldn’t film it, but I followed it for quite some time, because sharks are fascinating to watch when they swim.   

We found another reef, were a school of Bermuda Chub (Matt is our resident fish expert) were swimming in and out of the holes in the reef. After waiting for a while at the edge of the reef, one of the fish swam close enough that I could get a good shot. We placed the Chub in the bucket fairly quickly, but some blood did get in the water, and it only took 5 – 10 minutes, before the sharks were back. As soon as they realized that there was nothing to eat, they disappeared again.

Martin had already left and Heidi and I was trying to catch more Bermuda Chub, but they had gotten scared so we started swimming back to shore. On the way back Heidi shot another fish, which got away from her and went into a hole. After going back down, and shooting it again, the sharks were already there and she had to give the fish to the sharks.

Another amazing day of spear fishing. Other things we saw were the Lion fish below, Turtles, baracudas, a few small squid and lots of other fish.

That night we had another great dinner with freshly caught fish and lobster and enjoyed the company of Heidi and Mark.

This video has been filmed and created by Sergei and it shows the work of the safety team very well.

It was a very impressive day, with 6 men diving 100 meters or more.

Today the competition started with women’s CNF (Constant Weight No Fins). CNF means that the freediver swims down to a target depth without fins and return to the surface with whatever weight they took down with then. Usually about 4-6 lbs of lead to help overcome the buoyancy of their wetsuit at the surface.

There were 13 women who dove today to depths between 21 m – 55 meters.

The safety team started at 8am today, setting up the bottom plate and camera system, getting the oxygen and training lines ready. We had a great competition, with no accidents and all competitors returned safely to the beach. A few of the athletes attempted personal bests and there was a few black outs, but all athletes started breathing without needing assistance from the doctor.

At 2pm the competition ended, but the safety team stayed around and dove on the line. We used the weight to pull us down, so we don’t have to use our tired legs. We also pulled down the roped and Aaron and Martin both achieved new depth personal bests.

The day ended with safetying a few of the athletes who came out to train. We did this for a few hours and then back to the house for something to eat before the committee meeting where all the athletes, judges and organizers talk about the day. There were no major complaints or concerns today, so the meeting didn’t take to long. Now back to the house for food and recharge our batteries.

Another great day in Bahamas.

We have posted more pictures on www.enjoyfreediving.com under the Safety Team 2009 sub menu.

Today was the last training day which is nice for the safety team. On the two official training days we spend a lot of time in the water. I had 58 dives yesterday and I know Phil had 78, and the rest of the team had equal amount of dives. Today we were in the water for 7 hours of safetying and one more for testing our safety procedures.
My hands and feet have blisters and we are all sun burnt and tired, but it has been two great days. All the competitors are very friendly and generally seem happy about us being there to make them safe.

We had several impressive dives today and a lot of the competitors make freediving look so easy.

We tested the counter ballast system (safety system) and did a simulated rescue from 25 meters to show the judges that we were able to handle this. Even after a long day it all went as planned.

No pictures posted today, because it is time to go home to eat and then it will be early bedtime tonight. The ladies start diving in the competition.