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Day 1: May 30th 2004
Written by: Rudi Castineyra

Well, hello to all, and thanks for joining us on this adventure. After so many months of talking about this, thinking about it, dreaming about it, planning and training for it, here we are finally, about to start our record training period. We are in Kas, an enchanting little coastal town in the Turkish Mediterranean. Well, as usual, nothing has gone exactly as planned and we have already some “memorable” experiences to talk about without even getting in the water. These experiences have to do with, what else, international travel…

As I arrived at Miami International Airport with my plastic case loaded with 170 lbs of photo and video equipment, I was informed, in a very relaxed and comforting manner by the staff of American Airlines, that they no longer accepted any luggage weighing over 100 lbs. This left me with the option of either going back home to rearrange my bags and miss the flight, or buy an extra bag in one of the airport’s stores and frantically split the cargo between the plastic case and the bag. Of course I opted for the second option, which meant that I barely made the plane. That same plane was then delayed in mid-flight due weather conditions, arriving at my connecting destination in Chicago with only 30 minutes time, forcing me to (again) run for my life to make the second flight. I did, but my bags were not so lucky and they are still somewhere over Europe, traveling leisurely to rejoin me at some point, hopefully tomorrow as I am assured by the pertinent authorities…

Then we have David, who flew in to Turkey from the US, being convinced that he could obtain a Turkish visa upon entering the country. At least that’s what the people at the consulate told him, and as usual, they were wrong. So, after spending 15 hours on several planes to arrive in Turkey, David was told in very calm and friendly words by the Customs officer that he had no visa and had to return to the US immediately! Which of course, meant that he immediately called Yasemin and I, who were at that exact moment driving to Kas in our car loaded with over 500 kilos of dive gear, and let us know the good news. This is exactly what you need to keep the spirits high in a Saturday afternoon. But, having been working with an international team for so many years now, and having dealt with so many expected and unexpected obstacles of this kind, we didn’t let this get us down. Yasemin in turn called one of her most loyal fans, the Turkish minister for foreign trade, an avid diver, who managed to convince the airport authorities not to deport our Jamaican champion. With that problem solved, we then realized that in the commotion that ensued after receiving David’s call for help, we missed a very important turn on the twisty road to Kas, and by the time we realized the landscape around us was not looking familiar at all, we had lost over 2 hours of precious time. So we arrived at the door of our wonderful host, the Hera hotel, at 4:00 AM, completely exhausted after a nice 14-hour drive on the countryside…

So, after a day of rest and recovery, things started to fall into place by the afternoon today. Our divers began arriving, Arthur Zaloga from Egypt and Luca Cora from Italy are here already, while Mutlu Gunay and the rest of the Turkish team arrives tomorrow morning. Our trimix and oxygen bottles were delivered by Boss, our gas supplier, and the boat and dive gear are set for our first dives tomorrow. Tomorrow is a test day, which will be used to set up all the systems on the boat, prepare descent lines and deco stations, confirm our new rope’s measurements and for David and Yas to do a couple of shallow dives each to “get in the groove”. So, following our traditional depth progression chart, they will both do several dives to a maximum of 30 meters for Yasemin and 40 meters for David. It should be a fun and easy day and we are all looking forward to it, but even then, it will be nothing but work, as we will already start to graph their dives and establish optimum speeds of descent and ascent as well as performing a thorough technique evaluation. So, in tomorrow’s update, we will let you know how the first dives go and you will hear the first impressions from the divers themselves, so don’t forget to join us!

Safe dives to all,

Rudi Castineyra