Depth freediving in Germany

Last Monday, 16th of December was freediving in Dive4Life, Germany.

Was first time deep-diving in my new 1.5mm Elios Sub wetsuite from Yamamoto 45 neoprene and with Suunto Ocean. Water temp was 25°C and it felt good: neither warm nor cold. Spent 3 hrs in the pool with one pause. Made 35dives, with total surface time 2:25’ and 22’26” dive time. Max depth 17.1 m and longest dive 1’45”. I’ve set computer to count dives from 1m as on last training session it counted 60 dives in one hour, triggerring every move of my hand below .5m.

Same videos on gopro site.

At the beginning I didn’t feel comfortable with equalisation. Warmup FIM’s were like I’m busy with too many things: mask was flooding, I started using too much air for equalisation, I was swallowing the air, I kept in my mouth for equalisation, I even thought I started doing valsalva all of a sudden! And it felt like I was able to spend way less time underwater.

So I warmed up slowly and for the first hour was only doing FIM to 10m. Then the feeling came back to me and I started spending more time at depth and felt less busy with equalisation. Still it feels 2x-3x comfy on the ascend: like on my descend I am only busy with equalisation and when I reach desired depth, I stop and turn and look at the timer and the wall, maybe to the buttom, then at some time I decide to return, and most of the time it is when my buddy appears nearby, and on ascend it feels I am getting extra relaxation with evey meter I am ascending, it feels like I can ascend for hours :)

I never felt like I am out of breath during all that day. Which is good. I never felt worried or anxious. I got small blood drop from my nose at one of the first dives but that didn’t end with any ear os sinus pain on next attempts so I forgot about it completely.

Things I did find weird or new:

1. Feeling that I started equalising differently, not to the better way. Like I am running out of stored air in my mouth way too early – like 5-7 meters already. I noticed that I accidentelly swallow that air at or before 5-7m and then I have nothing to equalise from and then I do “grouper calls”, how my instructor called them. The sound that appears when I am trying to bring air from the lungs to the mouth (or directly to the ears), but lungs are also compressed so that is not easy.

2. Mask flooding. Maybe because this time I was diving with mask over the wetsuite cap, but it was flooding like 80% of the times. And it was starting to get water at the breathups, so annoying. Some attempts I was turning back as I had problems seeing the line, like I need to bend my head to the left to keep all the water in the mask to the right, to see the line in the air pocket of 20-30% of the left eye.

3. With duck-dives it felt like I am late with first underwater equalisation. I do pre-equalisation on the surface, then I do one-or-two kicks and dive, but when my hands finish the first stroke I already feel pressure on ears and mask and immediately proceed with equalisation and not kick with fins until I’m done. That makes me do softer surface kicks and less effective duck-dive, to not push me to the depth fast. Maybe that was just that day’s body situation.

4. Clearing cap from air at ears: I knew about that but still find it new. Air is trapped between cap and ears and no breathup I open the cap on both sides to let water in and reverse when I’m back on the surface after dive.

5. I’ve got a new thing to worry about: if I go CWNF, will I have air and strength to swim back?

Things to improve and to think next time:

1. Checking the video, I need to focus on keeping fin kicks more parallel, as I’m to spreading the legs (looks like 50° or more now).

2. Mentally scan body for non-relaxed muscles during breathup and dive.

3. Bring mask strap more down as that could be the reason of flooding.

4. Bring carabiner to attach it to the buoy there, so we can store gopro camera on it.

5. Bring camera filters.

6. Try asking yourself the following questions. Did I:

   • Breathe properly before and after the dive?
   • Reach my planned depth without equalization difficulties?
   • Descend and ascend under control?
   • Return to the surface without worries that I was going to make it?

   If you answer “yes” to all of these, you may be ready to progress up to 3 metres/10 feet deeper.

Thoughts on exercises for next time:

1. Practice detaching the leach from the hand, simulating the scenario when it is stuck underwater.

2. Practice safety: removing belt and neck load on the bottom by your buddy.

3. Practice no-fins FIM to mid depth and then swim back to build up confidence in doing CWNF.

4. Practice safety, probably we should do it every session.