It was a long  journey but I made it. After spending a couple of days in Athens sight seeing, it was an early morning flight  (6am) to Frankfurt, then 5 hours in the airport before flying 11 hours to Osaka, Japan.

From Osaka, I had to catch the shuttle bus to get to another airport for the connecting flight which was another hour sitting on my sore butt, then 3 hour flight to Okinawa. By this stage, as you might imagine, I was totally exhausted and being the only foreigner on the domestic flight, it was interesting to see the poor Air Stewardesses struggling with their English on my behalf. I almost went up to her to say, just tell me when its time to get off and dont worry about the rest.

Landing in Osaka, I found out because I did not book on the shuttle bus to the hotel, it was going to be 2 hours before it came back, so I decided to get a cab. costly, but at least I got there!

At the hotel, they were not expecting me for another day, so because my shared room was not ready, they put me up in a king suite. Ohhh the luxury!  Slippers, Robe, heated toilet seat, bidet, powder room, kind sized bed, massive flat screen tv (Only showing USA military TV – Man thats total propaganda crap if I have ever seen it!).

I decided to have a nap, and set an alarm for 2 hours, Woke up, ate, then lay on the bed to watch some mindless TV. Next thing I wake up, its still light… huh? I looked at the clock, it was Lunchtime the next day! 16hours sleep.

Later on that day I met with the USA team at the pool, did some shonky dynamics, tried out Ron’s solid wing monofin which was interesting and then headed back to the pool for dinner with the Danes.

Next day I rested up and Guy arrived around midnight.

Next day we decided, lat min, to start our depth training. It was our first experience in the waters of Okinawa.
Wind, strong current, big waves and lovely warm clear water. Mixed bag.

I did the first dive, 65m Free Immersion, to see what the current was like. CRAZY! I was horizontal and needed to pull all the way down, then back up again. I was now thinking some very bad thoughts about the conditions.  Others did their dives and struggled against the conditions as well, but just at the end of the training session, the current eased up and Jacob from Denmark did his dive to his target depth. After finishing, he told me that everything was great, so I decided to have a crack at it too. I had the same depth as him and did a very nice dive. Came up fresh and smiling.

Good first session!

Today was a very early start, having to be at the bus at 6am. Unfortunately Guy and myself had not planned for this with food so the start of the day was not a good one eating some horrid biscuits and drinking water. Prior to my dive, I felt flat and unenthusiastic. The conditions were pretty good though with water temp 28 at the surface, dropping to 25 at depth.
There was a nasty current running in the top 15m which meant that you needed to kick all the way to the surface.

That was the end of todays training. We came back to the hotel and ate so much that we all (as a team) slept through the pool session we had planned. haha At least we are doing things as a cohesive team.  We also went to the supermarket and got some good food for the mornings!

Tomorrow is another CWT training day with an early start.

I will attempt to keep this as up to date as possible, but its difficult to get a good connection to the server in NZ due to this shared internet connection which is rather slow.

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So, better late than never right?

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Hey Simon, The mouthfill thing only just clicked for me properly this comp. It’s not so much about doing the mouth fill as apposed to keeping it and being able to use it.
The best way to describe what I found I was doing and what was working for me was as follows:Head poisition – looking at the line with a chin down towards the chest on a slight angle, maybe 10 degreesMouthfill – starting at 30m and filling it up every 1 – 1.5 seconds as hard as I could, which also causes the equalization to happen at the same time (Think of it as free eq when topping it up)Around 50 – 55m it becomes hard to mouthfill more air into the mouth, so begin to remain totally focused on using what is there.Tongue – pushing the tip of my tongue hard into the back of my upper front teeth, then moving the back of the tongue up to equalize. Keep equalizing all the time. Every second if you can. Its when you miss one that you start to play catchup, get tense and its all bad. RELAX! nothing will happen to you on the way down, so stop fighting the depth, its going to win so why bother right? You turn to fight is after that tag is safe in your hands or hood or where ever you put that sucker.
After the turn, no sudden movements. Dont go into stream line right away if you are deep (say 65m or more) because you can get squeezed. Dont tug on the lane really hard at full stretch, just use it to get you going, and now its time to enjoy the sensations of the pressure coming off. If you have narcosis, Anna Von Bootie say’s it best “You can focus through it, so stay vigilant enough to recognize the symptoms, and when you know its there, remian focused on the line, the equalization and getting that tag” The last 30m is important. Focus, chant the SP through your head, smile at your safety diver, maybe stop kicking as you get buoyant, run your hand up the line and be ready to do your clean SP and get the white.
I hope that helps.

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Soooooo…. what happened huh?

Firstly the Saturday night was a fairly rough one as there was another Greek wedding down below Fillipe’s and my room. I was also not feeling 100%. Fillipe had a cold over the week and was pretty choked up in the sinus. I thought I was suffering the same fate as my nose did not seem clear.
I woke up a number of times through the night, so it was pretty restless.
On the morning of the last day, it was perfect in the bay. Not a ripple on the water, but a slight breeze blowing, cloud cover so it was not scorching hot.

Guillaume, Jure,  Flourant, Anna and myself were first out on the water at 10am.

Just before Guillaume’s dive, Dave T broke his new national record for CNF by 2m I think.
Guillaume attempted his dive to 118m but unfortunately turned early around 100m or something. He came up smiling and shrugged it off.
My turn, I was feeling a little nervous, but nothing serious. I felt ready for the dive. 2min, 1min, 30 seconds, 20 seconds, 10 seconds, Inhale, 5seconds, packing … Offical Top (no backing out now) … still packing…
This is where things did not go so well. At around +8 seconds a small wave broke over my face just as I was sucking up another pack, which sprayed the back of my throat. I managed somehow to control it, not cough even though I really needed to, and kept packing. In my mind I was thinking “Red card, airway dip!!!! ARRRGG”. At that point I almost aborted the dive, but thought what the hell, red, I want this depth, so tried to refocus. Duck dive was ok, and started down. Was still thinking about the red card until my alarm distracted me at 30m, committed to the dive now, I did my mouthfill and kept descending. Somewhere around 70m or so, I lost my mouthfill and did a nasty reverse pack to see if I could keep going. I did get about 1/2 a motuhfill and was also fighting to catch up after missing an EQ. I was struggling hard. I did as much as I could and turned early. As I turned, I looked down at the plate, swore at it and vowed to get it next time. I had no idea of my depth and started for the surface. Somewhere, not so long after turning, I remember getting really angry about the dive and kicked really hard, just to feel better. Saw Daan my safety at 25m and shrugged at him. He shrugged back and we went to the surface. Completed SP and was given the yellow for the early turn and no tag. Then they told me the depth from the gauge. 90m! I was then happy.. to equal your Pb set only 2 days ago under that situation was actually pretty cool. I eq’ed with very little air and stopped before I rode my ears. No damage great depth. Happy now.

After lunch I packed up the Blueseventy stand that I was displaying the Nero and Descent gear, then it was party time!

CWT
Men – Guillaume – 114m (Gold), Jure – 91m (Silver), Jacob and I tied for Bronze @ 90m
Woman – Maria Teresa – 65m (Gold), Jana – 64m (Silver), Liv – 60m – (Bronze)

CNF
Men – William W – 72m (Gold), Guillaume and I tied for Silver @ 70m, Johan – 68m (Bronze)
Woman  -  Niki – 60m (Gold), Jana – 49m (Silver), Liv – 44m (Bronze)

FIM
Men – William W – 97m (Gold), Guillaume – 94m (Silver), Jure – 86m – (Bronze)
Woman – Maria Teresa – 63m (Gold), Jana – 60m (Silver),  Liv – 54m (Bronze)

Overall Winners
Men – First – Guillaume (278), Second – Moi (240), Third – Jure (197)
Woman – Jana (173), M T – (170), Liv (158)

So, that wrapped up one of the best competitions I have had any results in. Stavros runs a very tight ship and his safety team are something else. I cant fault anything with the comp and as always the people there that I met, new and old friends are amazing.

Now to Japan, where Guillaume and I will meet again in a different arena for another round. We will see what happens there. Cant wait.

I will build a gallery on here soon with images taken from this event.

Also Simon questioned me about Equalization. I have written my thoughts about what happened which I will post soon.

Keep an eye open for my Japan Blog. (I hope I get some good inspiration for some funny there)

Ps. I would like to point out something really special that happened in this competition. As we all know, Guillaume holds all the French national records EXCEPT in FIM.  Florent Pascal was there to try and break the existing FIM record which I think from memory is somewhere in the mid 80’s. Guillaume, needed to get his points in FIM for the competition, so he set the plate at 97m. He turned at 96m and got 2 penalty points for short and no tag, thus not setting a record and allowing another diver to keep trying to better himself in the discipline that he is best at.
I dont know of many sporting codes where this would happen.
Guillaume, if you read this, I take my hat off to you and can assure you that your actions speak very highly of the person you are.

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Anna was my surface coach again and when she saw me out at the boat, she knew I was not relaxed, so she asked me what the plan was. I told her that when I get to the bottom, I was going to use my no fins to come back until I got tired and then I would switch to puling on the line. Her response was “No you will NOT. You will grab the line and pull yourself all the way to the surface!”. Since Van Bootie is German, you can not argue with her, thefore that was my new plan, like it or lump it.

I got on the line and felt pretty good all things considered. My heart rate was elevated but that was ok.
I started the dive pulling down the rope to around 20 – 25m where I just put my arms to the side and relaxed, pretending it was a no-fins descent.  Around 35m I was so relaxed I was starting to enjoy the dive, so I tucked up into an awesome streamline and accelerated with a nice grin on my face. Things were feeling great. Next thing I hear my alarm going nuts, I was there! One more eq and I am at the plate. Should have gone deeper. Grabbed the tag and started my way up. No signs of narcosis and feeling great. Pull, glide, pull glide, I spotted the other counter ballast rope, so I was facing the right direction, pull glide, there is the safety, poke tongue at Daan, pull glide, glide, surface, hook, breath, SP, laugh, wait for card, go give Guillaume his neckweight back  then on the O2 for recovery.

So for me personally this has been the most amazing comp ever. 4 dives, 4 white cards, 3 pb’s and one dive to go.

What a buildup for Japan! This has been more than I ever expected.

Still waiting for the official results for today, so I will not say what others did other than Johan D, that crazy Swedish diver who did not train for this but just secured a new CNF record with a 68m dive! Not bad when his form looks like a jellyfish mating with a squid. I know it was a hard dive for him, but it makes it all the sweeter.

Will publish results when I have them.

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No dont get me wrong here, Diving Deans is AMAZING but for different reasons, but the darkness does take a little getting used to.

So, you ask why I mention this, well, its because I have learned to dive with my eyes closed. Internally focused to the nth degree, never looking until I reach the plate, so my dive is all about relaxation in the darkness, being comfortable about being alone and knowing that you know every internal aspect of your body.

Diving here in Greece has been a real eye opener to be sure in more ways than one. Firstly, I have discovered  what I was doing wrong in the mouthfill and how not to let it go, secondly, seeing the plate at 90m is so awesome, thirdly, Le Blue! and lastly (fourthly??), always the people, new friends, old friends. Freedivers are the most amazing people in the world without a doubt. There are more, but I dont want to ramble on more than I need to.

Yesterdays dive was a surreal experience. I slept the night before better than any night I have had here, work up fresh and ready. I went through my normal routine of stretching, yoga and … no wait.. thats not me… of waking up and getting my gear ready then went down to the boat. I felt super calm and seemed to get more relaxed the closer I got to my dive time. Strange thing was, I was taking a massive gamble. The other day, I did 83m CWT which was a pb by 2m, but you might recall that I managed to EQ @ the plate, so I threw out the number 90m to see if I could do it again, because an eq @ 80-sumthing should get me to 90.

I got some interesting looks when the announcements were posted. I dont think its really that normal to throw 7m on top of your pb in a comp situation, but screw it. Life without risk is boring, my goal here is depth, so lets see what I can do.

The breathup on the line was great, conditions perfect, the safety team, best in the business, line set, 2 mins, breath in, breath out.

Off the surface I had one little negative thought, doubt that jumped out of nowhere, but I pushed it away as I was not going to listen to that devil today. Mouthfill was great, eq working fine, systems go, ignite the rockets.

Hit the plate with my last eq around 83 – 84m. Perfect, only a very small ride of the ears and executed the best turn I have ever done I think. Panagiota said to me at announcements that it was one of the best turns from all the bottom footage.

I did make one small mistake though, which was I looked for the plate when I was still maybe 3m from it… minor throat squeeze! I felt it go.

Anyhow, for this dive, I knew I had to relax, so I took my time heading up and managed a nice 1.2m/sec ascent which meant that I had no lactic and was super clear on the SP.

It was the best dive ever I tell you, but the best part was the happyness on the faces around me. I did not realize how much other people were wanting me to make that dive too. The support from your friends and fellow competitors is just the best thing ever.

It was also awesome to be present with Guillaume did his 114m CWT dive setting a new French Record and coming up super clean too. He is poetry in motion to watch and its great to be able to nominate high enough to witness his dives.

So, today, its 80m FIM. Something I have only done 2 dives in to 50m and 60m respectively. Should be fun I think and I will try to keep my eyes open this time to embrace the calming blue.

Ciao for now.

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Sorry for the bad picture.

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I went to Guillaume and suggested it and he was all for it. Out on the boat, pre-dive, I found out that  the neck weight that was supposed to be left there for my dive was not there! Guillaume kindly loaned me his one for my dive which speaks volumes for the guy. We were joking about before the dive too. Great times.

The dive yesterday was a bit of a gamble for me. There was no doubt in my mind that I could do 70m, but I have not trained for it at all, so I had no idea of the weight I would need, speed I would go with the new suit or anything! I went to William W for advice and asked him, 68 or 70? he said, “Dude your looking so strong right now, just go for 70 if you think you can get it easy” so thats what I did. Then I saw the announcements. How cool, Guillaume and I, equal announcements! Sweet.

The sun was also really hot out there yesterday and the only problem with this fantastic comp is the lack of shade out there. I took a towel and hid under that drinking water and talking crap with the other guys.
I had the amazing Anna Von Boetticher in my corner as coach for the safety protocol. She was great, towing me over to the line, getting me all ready. Thx you!
3 mins out, clipped on the line is the best part of the dive for me. I love the feeling inside that 3 mins where you just clear your mind, relax and listen to the numbers ticking away. Heart rate dropping, love it.
Dive started well, I powered down not realizing how fast I was going! The safety team said I was off like a rocket. For me, it just felt like my usual power strokes, but of course I was not sure about weight so wanted to make sure that I changed to negative buoyancy as soon as possible. I had my eyes closed (as usual) and when I opened them, I saw one of the stripes on the line was right in front of my face and it was not moving! I thought I was going no where! Arrg. I put in two really powerful strokes, but just then I hit 30m and my alarm went off… I had to refocus as I realized that the boat must have gone down into the  trough of a wave and the line must have dipped with me as I opened my eyes… I was flying down!

I reached the bottom plate @ 64 seconds and begun my ascent. I was a bit narced too, so I put some easy strokes to begin with and then put the gas on to get back up. I opened my eyes at one stage and saw my wonderful safety guy (Daan) was in front of me, so I knew that 2 more strokes then glide to the surface, but what I did not realize was that I was only 2 strokes from the top! I ended up swimming to the surface. Hahaha! 2 hook breaths, goggles, noseclip, say “I’m Ok” , show the tag. Job done.

A nice dive to get behind me for sure. Then I went round to the oxygen and watched Guillaume do his descent from 5m under the water. Looked great.

So, that was that. Very happy with a dive I should not really have done, but threw out there anyway.

Now, without further ado, here are the Day1 and Day2 result sheets.

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Since I had announced 3rd deepest for today, I was on the first boat out with Guillaume Nery (110 CWT) and William Winram (101 FIM).  Esteemed company indeed.
I always love being able to spend time with the best, it kinda make you feel more relaxed or something, and they are always wishing you well as much as you wish them in return.

Conditions were Perfect. The sea was like a lake, no current and enough cloud cover to keep the heat down.

Guillaume was up first and pulled off a very nice dive, almost failed on the SP because he forgot to say “I’m Ok” but one of the French divers yelled at him and he just got to say it in the last second or so.
William dived next but had trouble with the mouth fill and also was very underweight. I think he said it was 2min 10 to the turn @ 92m ! which is simply too slow.

I was next, feeling those wonderful butterflies in the stomach which I actually enjoy. Got on the line 3 mins out (I am a no warmup diver) and let my body temp adjust.
Feeling great.
Off the surface I felt very strong and made the conscious effort to slow the hell down! I was trying to kick slow and lazy and it felt nice.
Usual mouthfill @ 30m and top it up to 50 – 55m then pure focus on keeping that mouthfill all the way.
I am happy to report that today was the first day I have actually kept that sucker, and holly crap batman, I did my last EQ at the plate while still inverted.

I dont think I need to tell you how great that EQ felt!

Grabbed a tag then went for the surface, again, trying to keep it relaxed and nice.
No lactic, no stress, no worries Mate!

Made the surface, hook breath, goggles, nose clip, “I’m ok”, show the tag, I’m done.
Really really nice dive, new PB and a great start to the comp!

Now I will sit back and see how the others go, talk crap, smile lots and think about tomorrow announcement.

Ohh… and here is a pretty picture to have a look at.
That wetsuit is so slippery its almost too fast (Did I mention that I have an amazing wetsuit that kicks the ass of any wetsuit out there???? huh?? did I ??? yeah??? ).

Descent speed = 1.2m /second and dont forget that I am not wearing any weight!

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See? Narcosis. Or heat stroke. Back to the point. The point is pointy, namely that we have also, under the influence of narcosis/heat stroke/olive oil (they use that to drown the food in here, whether it needs to be killed by drowning or not) invented a suberb new device: the liquorice noseclip. It is radical, it is sensible, it is edible. Behold:

We followed the design philosophy of 3 year olds:  see if it fits up your nose. This works as it takes away the issue of having your nose pinched to mashed potato (which, by the way, they also drown in olive oil here).  It is also very dermatologically balanced, as liquorice has the same PH-balance and salinity as the inside of one’s nose.

For sale through this site, and only through this site. Brought to you by narcosis. Or heat stroke. Or olive oil.

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