Shark Freediving

Freedive Dahab does it again. Blue Hole home to yet more records!!!

Dahab’s Blue Hole has seen its fair share of spectacular freediving and last week was no exception. Three athletes, from three countries came together to set new national records in Constant Weight and Free Immersion. The 26 year-old Kiwi, Dave Mullins arrived in Dahab at the end of May for a three week run-up to his very ambitious attempts at Ant William’s 82 meters Constant Weight. He was joined a week later by Pat Schnorf, from Switzerland, who was aiming to break the national records of 65 meters, established by himself in both Constant Weight and Free Immersion. They caught up with Dahab-resident Sara Campbell, who was hoping to add the Constant Weight and Free Immersion records to her No Fins to make it a triple.

The whole event was organized by Freedive Dahab, the coaching and training company run by former world record holder, Lotta Ericson, and her partner, national record holder, Linda Paganelli. They used their highly successful new counter ballast system, which had its debut at the April CWT/CNF competition recently. The system consists of a three-meter long steel pulley system with brakes, suspended beneath up to five freediving buoys, and through which the rope passes. It is a very simple system, which can be maneuvered easily, a benefit which came into its own, as Dave announced he would be attempting over 95 meters and would need to dive OUTSIDE the Blue Hole (he’d already hit his head on the coral on the bottom once during training!).

As can be expected during such events, not everything went to plan. Pat suffered from a strange pain in his ear and jaw and was finding equalizing difficult, and Dave succumbed to the infamous Dahab belly, as well as a head cold early on in training, which kept him out of the water for a few days, and even interrupted his record attempts on day two. Having had every stomach bug under the sun since arriving in Dahab over two years ago, Sara was thankfully spared any kind of illness, although the butterflies may have been responsible for a few last minute trips to the loo prior to the attempt dives!

The attempts started on Wednesday 6th June, with the following dives (see tables below for dive times):
Sara – 58m CWT
Pat – 70m CWT
Dave – 92m CWT
Sara – 58m FIM

Three successful attempts put everyone on a high, particularly Pat’s dive as he had been so stressed and each meter was a mental battle for him to keep going to his target 70 meters. It was great to see his smile as the white card was produced by Lotta. With a Free Immersion attempt still to go, however Sara faltered on her mouth fill and had to turn early at 55m. The team was ready to pack up and go home, but stubborn to the last, Sara asked for a few minutes to recover in order to try again. Against the advice of Lotta and Linda, veterans of competition and record attempts, Sara made a second attempt at 58 meters just 20 minutes later – and this time returned with the tag to complete a successful dive.

Day two, Thursday 7th June, Dave had unwisely taken Sara’s advice on the pasta dish the night before and was in bed with a dodgy tum, so Sara and Pat were braving the deep together. It was a day of clean dives and big smiles.
Sara – 62m FIM
Pat – 66m FIM

With his two new records behind him, Pat was back on form and announced he would be attempting 70 meters FIM the following day. Dave had recovered sufficiently to join the crew for dinner and Sara was suitably apologetic about keeping Dave from his 95-meter target that day! She was eternally grateful for the fact that the boys didn’t insist she go for a new British record in naked CNF as her punishment for injudicious dining!

Day three, Friday 8th June, Pat’s last day before flying back home to Switzerland. The whole gang was back together, feeling relaxed and confident, having bagged all the results they came to set, with simply ‘bonus’ records ahead of them. The dive order was switched for Pat’s last day as Sara had been taking too long on her warm-ups and apparently slowing the proceedings down. So Pat dived first, and scared us all slightly with a very long FIM to 70 meters – apparently he fell below the bottom plate and had some difficulty untangling his lanyard before turning – his dive profile showed a rather scary 17 seconds at the bottom! Sara did a clean 62 meter CWT dive, rounding off proceedings INSIDE the Blue Hole.

Finally, as Dave was going for his awesome 95 meter dive (video here), the team had to move the counter ballast to outside the Blue Hole for the final dive of the day. With a great team on board which included Seamus from Australia on camera in his rubber dinghy, and Rachel from the UK (whose mum dates Hannah Stacey’s dad!!!) who was here to train with boyfriend Ben who provided safety alongside Dane, Christian, it was a seamless operation with everyone pulling their weight to ensure optimal conditions and calm for Dave. He was typically relaxed on the surface, although he had problems with his nose clip, which didn’t seem to want to stay on. But unruffled, Dave did a fabulous 95 meter CWT dive, returning to much applause and admiration – whatever!

The third day was celebrated with a barbecue on the beach at the laguna, where everyone had to hold on to their chicken to save it from flying away in the wind that had also set some challenges for the team during the dives. Pat, who was flying home later that night, enjoyed a few glasses of Egypt’s finest vintage (!) and the crew stumbled home in the early hours for a good night’s sleep, looking forward to a day’s rest before the final attempts on Sunday.

Day 4, Sunday 10th June, was the perfect freediving day. Gone were the rather windy and wavy conditions from day three which made Seamus’s job as camera man in the rubber dinghy rather more exciting than it should have been, we were blessed with totally calm waters and no wind. It was decided therefore that both dives would take place outside the Blue Hole and the counter ballast system was brought directly to outside the Arch.

Dave dived first, looking incredibly relaxed – and as we found out later, possibly a little too relaxed – on his descent. His dive took an incredible 3 minutes 43 seconds and he reported being ‘amazingly narked’ at the bottom. He suspects this was due more to the slow dive time than the depths. Despite this, he still returned comfortably, if a little tired, to the surface to claim his glory as the fifth deepest man in the world, and a nice round number of 100 meters to take home with him. Sara’s final dive of 65 meters was also successful, rounding off a brilliant week for the UK, Switzerland and New Zealand. Now the world watches Dave with bated breath to see whether he has it in him to attempt the world record in CWT.

Thanks again Sara, for your coverage and personal story about this whole event. You can read the news article about this event here. Thanks to Seamus Murray for the use of his photo’s.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Sara Campbell, Article, National Record. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.