PART 3
DESPITE WAVES AND SLIGHT CURRENT my 93m FIM dive felt quite nice, even though I’ll admit I don’t remember much of the ascent at all. Thanks to all my training in Tenerife i wasn’t too disturbed by the waves during my breathe up, but I really do dread the current.
Even though the competition line looked very straight (due to being heavily weighted) I knew we had current because the warm up lines were all at an angle and I was flagging during my warm up dive. I decided not to think about it and just go by feeling and see how it was at depth before making the decision to maybe turn earlier.
Of course I forgot all about it right the moment I started my dive and my thoughts went elsewhere for a while.
As I started freefalling I realized that I’m struggling to be straight and that I was dragging against the line, but the possibility to turn didn’t even cross my mind.
Then the struggle to stay streamlined took too much attention away from my equalization, and sure enough at around 60m I completely lost my mouthfill.
At this point i knew that I needed 100% of my focus to be with my equalization, since reverse packing to 90+ meters is not something I can do that easily. Turning still didn’t cross my mind. Finally my depth alarms went off and I managed to do one last equalization just past 85, so now I just had to ride my ears a little and hope to get to the plate.
As I took the tag I realised that “oh, I’m at the bottom!” and started ascending and that’s where my memory is fading. I have just a few snapshots of the ascent and everything in between is very blurry…
I HAVE JUST A FEW SNAPSHOTS of the ascent and everything in between is very blurry:
Next memory: I see something big gliding by (later the judges confirmed that the bottom camera captured tunas circling the bottom plate).
Next memory is just a thought: “it’s so noisy here, I won’t hear the scooter coming” (Sharm sea is very noisy, I assume due to all the boat traffic).
Next memory: I open my eyes and I see the scooter safety diver coming from below me, which confuses me a little, but I know I’m at about 40meters (that’s where usually the scooter meets the athletes).
Next memory: I open my eyes for a second and now all 3 safeties are there.
Next memory: I’m at the surface and a giant waves passes all the way above my head and the judges say “don’t worry, it’s a wave and not a dip” (sinking back into the water and dipping my head would be a disqualification, which is different than maintaining your position on the rope while a bigger wave passes over your head, as you can see in the video).
Usually I remember all my dives in great details so this is a new experience for me. It’s likely due to narcosis, which I never really experience, and was probably amplified by the fact that my dive was way longer than planned: it took me nearly 2 minutes to get to the bottom (due to the current slowing me down) and nearly 2 minutes to come back up, which maybe explain why I got narcosis unlike on other similar dives I did before.
Often students and friends ask me how a deep dive feels like and what I think about; so here you go, I picked this unusual dive to make a little analysis of the various stages, even if this doesn’t represent what I normally experience, I found it quite interesting and fascinating.
