Click on a day for the events of that particular day.

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13

Day 9: June 7th, 2004

Written by Yasemin Dalkilic

Today was planned as a rest day, and in the morning, we were to go out on the boat to do a photo shoot. But the thing we needed the most for this were the sponsor banners and stickers to be put on the platform, bottom plate and other areas of high visibility. They were scheduled to arrive this morning by express cargo, but we were informed that the cargo truck had an accident at night and we couldn’t get the things on time. The photo shoot dives were also gonna tire us, be not too good for David’s ears which are quite delicate and it was not gonna make sense to do it without the sponsor logos. So we canceled the dives. For the record on June 11th, this year instead of a LIVE transmission we set up a deal where the distribution agency which would record the dive and link it to the satellite to be available at 12:00 o’clock noon to be shown by about 10 of the big channels at the same time. For the channels to advertise this, the agency had sent a team with a broadcast vehicle to record some images today. But with their experience in working with us, freedivers before, they were fortunately very understanding with our decision to cancel the diving and did their recording by the pool instead.

We’re always talking about the technicalities of our diving which is obviously the major thing of these two weeks for us. But I wanted to use this rest day to tell about the other things we do. Whole team is staying in this comfortable hotel (Hera Hotel, our event host). Because of our immense amount of gear Rudi and I got this suit room that we can hardly fit in. But this more than our private room has become like an “office” of the record event. David is in this room of course except sleeping, but other than him, the whole team have their laptops, cameras, water bottles, sweaters, etc. in our room. The Russian members of our team have their bottle of vodka here. The door is open all day long when we’re not diving and all day long people are passing by, working on computers, cameras, chatting, having a little vodka shot, eating the proscuitto Luca brought from Italy, sausages Dimitri brought from Russia. David is our “official DJ” making sure we have music all day long in our “office room”. So you can find people in the balcony eating having a good time, some in the bedroom on the internet (since that’s where we have the phone line only), some showing freediving photos from their computer to each other. Also Rudi and David brought a set of DVDs and we do movie sessions at night sometimes whenever we have energy left for that. It’s quite a view really. But it’s nice and lively tough. My only complaint is Arthur finishing my lovely Altoid mandarin candies that Rudi brought from the US for me :)

We have tough goals coming on the next few days. Today we did some maintenance weight training and little bit of pool training afterwards. So both David and I are trying to do our best to be in our best shape. My concern is always my strength. I need to overcome the weakening factors of the heat, not being able to eat well etc. and preserve my muscles. Another thing I always have to fight against is my hemoglobin levels. Because of a minor thalassemia I have (known also as Mediterranean anemia, a chronic sickness that causes your hemoglobin to be low). Because of this it has always been below 12. We’ve been working on it for years and with some good iron supplements we finally got it up to an incredible 13.9. But once I started doing heavy training it went down to 12.8 in no time. It’s still not bad, but I’m afraid that right now it might have gone even lower and that might be another reason why I feel a little tired in general, which again is usually caused by a bad diet. My back hasn’t gotten any better yet but we’ll work on it some more with some massage and ointments. David’s concern in the mean time is equalizing. He’ll do couple of dives to 35 meters tomorrow to work on technique and equalization a bit. He still looks very strong and in great apnea shape. I’ll get to do some more rest tomorrow and will do some more maintenance work probably. See you tomorrow!

David’s Comments:
Well Yas pretty much covered everything. I just relaxed in the room most of the day and watched a dvd. Body is feeling good and ready to dive again. Will see you guys here again tomorrow!