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Day 12: June 10th, 2004

Written by Rudi Castineyra

Well, today we got ourselves our 4th World Record, 65 meters unassisted by Mr. David Lee, yeah baby!!! Let me say that again, David has reset the male unassisted constant ballast record from 63 to 65 meters/213 feet in a dive time of 2:14 minutes!!!

First, the technical data, the descent time was 1:06 minutes, with less than a second at the bottom, and 1:08 minutes for the ascent. Descent speed was 0.98 meters/second, 0.96 meter/sec for the ascent, and 15 strokes were used complete the ascent, for an ER of 4.64 meters/stroke, a phenomenal rate for any category, let alone unassisted, and by far the best David has ever done. He was fine on the surface as you will see on the video, and as he came out a few meters off the platform, he first started doing his recovery breathing before reaching for the platform pipes for support, a very wise maneuver. He took 7-8 “50/50” breaths, while I kept on talking to him, stimulating the auditory nerves and reminding him of all the steps for the breathing, until he felt certain he had the dive in the bag and sat on the pipes. He then slammed the tag on the judge’s hand, in one of our inside jokes, following The Big Blue,’s Enzo and his “Let them try!” antics ? That said, I had my doubts that the dive would go completely as planned, and even feared for a moment that he might not be able to finish it. As he went underwater for his first negative pressure dive, he felt his ear not wanting to equalize again, and this pattern repeated on the second negative, which is not exactly what you want to hear right before a 65 meter dive. However, we agreed that it was worth a try, we had nothing to loose and everything to gain, and with that in mind, we made some adjustments to his descent profile. We agreed for him to slow down considerably during the first 20 meters, leaving a 1-2 second pause in between strokes, and use those intervals fully for equalization, since a mistake in those first 20 meters can have drastic consequences for the rest of the dive. Then, we had the diver at 30 meters give him a signal at 35 meters, which David would use to start his mouth-fill technique, something he was starting at around 40-45 meters, but we felt that would work better in shallower water. He then got another signal at 45 meters, so he could gauge his speed of descent in a 10-meter interval, from 35 to 45, and make any adjustments if he felt he was falling too fast. All the last minute changes worked very well I’m proud to say, and as I was floating on the surface with my hood open, I heard all the signals one after the other one, my heart skipping a few beats every time I realized he had made it one stage deeper, until I heard the distinctive bottom signal, the loudest one of all, for we always make sure to give that safety diver our chrome clappers, which are indeed very sonorous. Then from there on, I let out a sight of relief and pounded my fist on the water, because I was certain that the ascent, though the hardest part of any dive, was something he could do, so as far as I was concerned, we had at that point a great chance to get the record, and we did! So, without further delay, I will pass you on to David for his side of the story, and we will see you tomorrow again, when Yas will attempt 46 meters again, and that should wrap up our diving period. So see you then!

(Click on the photo below to watch the video)

David’s Comment’s:

Hi all, good to have this dive in the bag. Overall it was a pretty easy dive compared to the 63m record. On the 63m I had a difficult time equalizing about 1m from the plate and just slid in and grabbed the tag. For this 65m I had ear problems but not so bad. Funny but I started to worry a lot about this on my first negative pressure when I felt my left ear lockup at about 8m from the surface. Really reassuring feeling, let me tell you. On the second negative pressure dive Rudi told me not to push the ear too much and only exhale 50% of my air instead of everything. Then once at the bottom, exhale the remainder. I was able to clear but with my left ear making this loud squeaking noise. I know we really had nothing to loose for this dive but I came here to dive and this is what I was going to do, good ear or bad ear. Before going in the water I made sure to put my watch on dive mode. I made sure specially for Topi who informed me that my last 63m dive was more like 2:10 instead of 2:05 because the watch was not on dive mode. So I didn’t want to screw it up this time. This helps because I want to have accurate timing. Thanks Topi! On the descent I paid a lot of attention to my speed. I made sure to make my descent a bit slower the first 30m as to make equalization easier. My ear behaved itself but not as a good ear would. It just kept doing this “squeak, squeak, squeak…” sound every time I let some air in. I just prayed that it would be this way all the way to the bottom and not get worse. I was quite surprised that at 65m I was able to pop my ears quite well. Like the same type of pop you can at 30m or so. It was a very comfortable dive and I was in no rush at all. My first contraction came at about 15m from the surface when I met Rudi and got 2 until I hit the surface. I really feel like I have a lot more left in me. A few days ago I asked Rudi “What do you think the depth of this unassisted will level out at?” He said he though it would level off around 80m. When he said that I really couldn’t imagine it. But after today’s dive I believe what he said. I felt so good today I could have done another 10m with the air I had and how my muscles felt. Now I wish I wouldn’t have limited myself to 65m and went ahead and did 70m. But I guess it was best to play it a bit conservative. So, one more record! Tomorrow Yas will repeat the 46m record for the press and we will continue some training in the following days. Also want to thank everyone for their support and prayers. Helped more than you could imagine.