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Inside gossip from the med freedive meeting 2008
Part 3
Winram with fins
Right, I have to start off by making an apology and correct some wrong information I put in one of the earlier chapters about William Winram's record attempt. You know how it is with the media and freediving: you give them all the facts, and they somehow turn it into a complete mess. So here goes: "William Winram from Canada, 28 years old, attempted a VARIABLE weight record last week, but turned a little short of his target depth." He was wearing a fin. He swam up. Oh well.
Weather days
Meanwhile, the team in Sougia has been kept very busy with freedivers training from morning till afternoon, followed by Herbert Nitsch's record attempts. Unfortunaltey, after his first attempt the weather decided to turn bad on him making any further sled dives impossible. judge Kimo from Finnland told me that the official boat was taking in water when he joined the cameraman and other judge - since no one could call Kimo fat enough to sink a boat, the waves must have been getting pretty big. Too bad for the flying fish, and all the freedivers here who were hoping to see a great performance! Accusations that current record holder Carlos Coste, also present at the meeting, was using vodoo to influence the weather are completely unfounded and will not be tolerated by this reporter.
Sleddiving vs findiving
Training was going well for the regular competitors, especially Julie Gautier from France has been improving every day, coming up with a smile on her face and a pb of 66m on her computer. She has been distracted by getting into arguments with an especially grumpy barmaid in our favorite hang-out (where the rest of the staff is extremely welcoming!), but has fortunately refrained from getting into a fist fight so far, choosing to channel her energy into her diving instead. I was less happy with the result of putting on a fin after sitting on the sled all week: I am able to report that instead of improving my deep equalization, as was the whole point behind this exercise, the sled has broken my constant weight! As soon as I kick, or pull, my whole body is shouting "what are you doing?!" and refuses to play along. I hope this unexpected side effect can be reversed in time for the worlds. In fact, I hope it IS reversible - oh no....
Greedy for depth
The first competition meeting was held on Thursday under a big tree outside our hotel, where a friendly, informal, "happy family" atmosphere prevailed until Stavros announced the prices to be won by the male and female overall winner of the competition: they each get to either come to this event next year FOR FREE, or Stavros Kastrinakis himself will organize an event for them and waive his fee! Well. From that moment on, the gloves were off! Freedivers were seen secretely glancing at their peers, trying to work out how many points they might need to win if such-and-such had a black out or turned early, to guess how strong fellow competitiors might be feeling....All this was interrupted when we were handed the announcement forms, which sported a previously unseen multiple choice next to the depth announcement of: "Depth _____ Are you sure? ____Yes ____No"! Well, as we know freedivers always find something to complain about in competitions, so it did not take long for someone to point out that the "___maybe" option was missing. Faced by a heap of freedivers unsure what to announce, as usual, Herbert Nitsch came up with an entirely new concept, which I would like to offer to discussion to my readers out there: we should just all announce for each other! I have a feeling that the result of this might have been that the safety divers would finally have had something to do, but I'll leave it up to a majority vote.
(editors note: M. Greatwood in Bizzy Blue Hole used dice to decide his announcements).
Blond and armed
After the announcements were made and Herbert's last sled attempt cancelled due to bad weather, Berangere (I appologize for the lack of accent in the French names, I can't find one on this Greek keyboard...) and I managed to talk Alex from Trygons into taking us on a spearfishing outing. He was rather nervous about being in the water with two blond girls holding guns, and got even more stressed when we were joined by judge Kimo, who is also blonde, after all. Fortunately he had freediving fotographer Fred Buyle helping him keeping an eye on the girls-with-weapons at all times. Since Berangere is the tiniest freediver of all times, she got the little gun (we did ask for a pink one, but no luck) and I was left with something resembling a cannon, at least in my mind. Things got off to an interesting start when it became clear that neither Berangere nor I were even remotely able to load our guns, leaving Alex busy recharging for us. I went off and lay in wait for my first fish next to a big rock. The biggest thing I saw was maybe 10cm long, the biggest thing that swam in front of my gun maybe 5cm. Things continued in this way, as I lay in wait for an enormous grouper to appear, slightly distracted by Fred Buyle drifting (carefully keeping out of range of my cannon at all times) into my field of vision, taking pictures - now how is a girl supposed to catch a fish when she is busy posing for the camera?
No taste for blood
Anyway, the hours flew by and the all the fish I encountered were cleary classified as babies. Alex told me since it was my first time, it was ok to shoot at one anyway ("the first fish you can shoot for the cat", were his precise words), especially since it was rather likely that I would miss. Still, I could not bring myself to do this and spent three hours without discharging the gun. Finally, as it was getting dark and we wanted to go home, Alex told me I had to shoot once at least, so as to unload the gun - never take a loaded gun out of the water, or something like that - so down I went one last time. I was lying on a rock expecting to just shoot at nothing, when this 20cm big (well, at least a bit bigger than the others!) parrot fish swam right in front of my arrow. I was thinking, oh well, I won't hit it anyway, squeezed my eyes shut and pulled the trigger. The recoil of the cannon surprised me so much, I let go of the thing. When I opened my eyes, there was this fish, on it's side, twitching - I thought, oh no, I must have knocked it on the head and stunned it! Poor thing! As I went to pick it up, it moved from my hand, so with some relief I decided that it must be alive and sure to recover soon. I swam up, and told Berangere, who had been watching, that I clubbed a fish on the head, but that it was ok - since she is a slightly more experienced hunter than me, and maybe a little less blonde, she imediatley spotted the completely dead fish lying on the bottom and shot down to pick it up. Oh no! Rarely have I felt so guilty, a feeling that was not improved by all the freediving-spearfishing-macho-men, who of course only shoot 750kg tuna, telling me that I had murdered the father of a family and his kids were now searchig for him all over, much like in finding Nemo. Well, my excuse is, it was an accident - after all, I had my eyes closed!
Deep dives
The first competition day had me feeling like a very small, shallow freediver, when I was the second to start with an announcement of 52m! My diving was still broken, though, so I turned early, while Berangere, who was first, had a beautiful dive with a pb in competition of 42m. Things continued well with Julie Gautier setting a new French national record with easy 68m CW, and Alexej Molchanov doing the same for Russia with a dive to 91m. He was followed by his mother, who went to finally reclaim her CW record in the worst conditions of the day, with a current down to 15m, plus waves and flying water on the surface. Watched by very nervous coach Bill Stromberg, she came up as clean and easy as you like and once again proved herself as an incredibly impressive athlete. Carlos Coste was the last to dive, with an annoucement of 98m FIM - after he had made the safety crew very twitchy with a divetime of 4:25, he was thrown by a mix of narcosis and the surface conditions, which meant that he dipped his airways underwater and got a red card. He says he now knows what he has to improve (speed?), though, and will try to do so on the last day of comeptition.
Winram entertaining the gang
In the evening, a tired crew of freedivers gathered in the restaurant for the usual enomous plates of pasta. Challenged to a game of chess by Venezuela, Germany took a heavy beating - well, blonde, see above - and left Russia in the shape of Alexej to show the world once again that Russians have chess in their blood. Meanwhile, William Winram was entertaining the entire bar by doing his best raving-lunatic-psycho-impression, wearing a pair of sunglasses he took from our charming and very patient waitress, while sporting his new mad hairdo. Now a word on this: when he arrived, his hair was cut shortish, perfectly normal, looking rather handsome in a touseled, wind-and-weather kind of way. Being who he is, Will soon found out what he could do to it with the assistance of salt water, and has been trying his best to frighten little children ever since. I have asked his wife Michelle to supply us with a picture, so you can all see for yourself!
The second day had only ten freedivers in the competition, all others were smart and decided to rest. Those of us who got out of bed to go out there were greeted as usual by Michelle, who was there to check freedivers' warm-up times and boat schedules and supply general support. She has fixed Berangere's seasickness (Berangere has been throwing up on the surface...) by pressing a magic button on her wrist, which I think she should mark permanently so someone else (i.e the buddy) can press it when needed in the future. Anyway, there she was, with a board saying: "mild current between 0-10m, small waves, temp 22C" . Well. "Mild" is clearly open to interpretation as we soon found out when we were flying off sideways with the warm up lines during our hangs! Needless to say, a lot of dives were cut short. There were however a few hardcore divers, who just made it in spite of everything - the most impressive of them being Manolis Giankos from Greece, who swam down unassisted to 58m, setting a national record! Aparently, freedivers weren't the only ones having a hard time - Fred Buyle only managed to avoid being swept into the competition line while taking pictures by employing what were described by a fellow cameraman as "eel like movements", snaking his pretty long body around the line at the last minute.
William Winram, of France, had announced an impressive world record in no fins with 88m, but decided to save his strength for tomorrow with hopes of improved conditions. Notice something? Now this time it is not a mistake by the reporter....more on this will follow!
Part 4
Part 3
Winram with fins
Right, I have to start off by making an apology and correct some wrong information I put in one of the earlier chapters about William Winram's record attempt. You know how it is with the media and freediving: you give them all the facts, and they somehow turn it into a complete mess. So here goes: "William Winram from Canada, 28 years old, attempted a VARIABLE weight record last week, but turned a little short of his target depth." He was wearing a fin. He swam up. Oh well.
Weather days
Meanwhile, the team in Sougia has been kept very busy with freedivers training from morning till afternoon, followed by Herbert Nitsch's record attempts. Unfortunaltey, after his first attempt the weather decided to turn bad on him making any further sled dives impossible. judge Kimo from Finnland told me that the official boat was taking in water when he joined the cameraman and other judge - since no one could call Kimo fat enough to sink a boat, the waves must have been getting pretty big. Too bad for the flying fish, and all the freedivers here who were hoping to see a great performance! Accusations that current record holder Carlos Coste, also present at the meeting, was using vodoo to influence the weather are completely unfounded and will not be tolerated by this reporter.
Sleddiving vs findiving
Training was going well for the regular competitors, especially Julie Gautier from France has been improving every day, coming up with a smile on her face and a pb of 66m on her computer. She has been distracted by getting into arguments with an especially grumpy barmaid in our favorite hang-out (where the rest of the staff is extremely welcoming!), but has fortunately refrained from getting into a fist fight so far, choosing to channel her energy into her diving instead. I was less happy with the result of putting on a fin after sitting on the sled all week: I am able to report that instead of improving my deep equalization, as was the whole point behind this exercise, the sled has broken my constant weight! As soon as I kick, or pull, my whole body is shouting "what are you doing?!" and refuses to play along. I hope this unexpected side effect can be reversed in time for the worlds. In fact, I hope it IS reversible - oh no....
Greedy for depth
The first competition meeting was held on Thursday under a big tree outside our hotel, where a friendly, informal, "happy family" atmosphere prevailed until Stavros announced the prices to be won by the male and female overall winner of the competition: they each get to either come to this event next year FOR FREE, or Stavros Kastrinakis himself will organize an event for them and waive his fee! Well. From that moment on, the gloves were off! Freedivers were seen secretely glancing at their peers, trying to work out how many points they might need to win if such-and-such had a black out or turned early, to guess how strong fellow competitiors might be feeling....All this was interrupted when we were handed the announcement forms, which sported a previously unseen multiple choice next to the depth announcement of: "Depth _____ Are you sure? ____Yes ____No"! Well, as we know freedivers always find something to complain about in competitions, so it did not take long for someone to point out that the "___maybe" option was missing. Faced by a heap of freedivers unsure what to announce, as usual, Herbert Nitsch came up with an entirely new concept, which I would like to offer to discussion to my readers out there: we should just all announce for each other! I have a feeling that the result of this might have been that the safety divers would finally have had something to do, but I'll leave it up to a majority vote.
(editors note: M. Greatwood in Bizzy Blue Hole used dice to decide his announcements).
Blond and armed
After the announcements were made and Herbert's last sled attempt cancelled due to bad weather, Berangere (I appologize for the lack of accent in the French names, I can't find one on this Greek keyboard...) and I managed to talk Alex from Trygons into taking us on a spearfishing outing. He was rather nervous about being in the water with two blond girls holding guns, and got even more stressed when we were joined by judge Kimo, who is also blonde, after all. Fortunately he had freediving fotographer Fred Buyle helping him keeping an eye on the girls-with-weapons at all times. Since Berangere is the tiniest freediver of all times, she got the little gun (we did ask for a pink one, but no luck) and I was left with something resembling a cannon, at least in my mind. Things got off to an interesting start when it became clear that neither Berangere nor I were even remotely able to load our guns, leaving Alex busy recharging for us. I went off and lay in wait for my first fish next to a big rock. The biggest thing I saw was maybe 10cm long, the biggest thing that swam in front of my gun maybe 5cm. Things continued in this way, as I lay in wait for an enormous grouper to appear, slightly distracted by Fred Buyle drifting (carefully keeping out of range of my cannon at all times) into my field of vision, taking pictures - now how is a girl supposed to catch a fish when she is busy posing for the camera?
No taste for blood
Anyway, the hours flew by and the all the fish I encountered were cleary classified as babies. Alex told me since it was my first time, it was ok to shoot at one anyway ("the first fish you can shoot for the cat", were his precise words), especially since it was rather likely that I would miss. Still, I could not bring myself to do this and spent three hours without discharging the gun. Finally, as it was getting dark and we wanted to go home, Alex told me I had to shoot once at least, so as to unload the gun - never take a loaded gun out of the water, or something like that - so down I went one last time. I was lying on a rock expecting to just shoot at nothing, when this 20cm big (well, at least a bit bigger than the others!) parrot fish swam right in front of my arrow. I was thinking, oh well, I won't hit it anyway, squeezed my eyes shut and pulled the trigger. The recoil of the cannon surprised me so much, I let go of the thing. When I opened my eyes, there was this fish, on it's side, twitching - I thought, oh no, I must have knocked it on the head and stunned it! Poor thing! As I went to pick it up, it moved from my hand, so with some relief I decided that it must be alive and sure to recover soon. I swam up, and told Berangere, who had been watching, that I clubbed a fish on the head, but that it was ok - since she is a slightly more experienced hunter than me, and maybe a little less blonde, she imediatley spotted the completely dead fish lying on the bottom and shot down to pick it up. Oh no! Rarely have I felt so guilty, a feeling that was not improved by all the freediving-spearfishing-macho-men, who of course only shoot 750kg tuna, telling me that I had murdered the father of a family and his kids were now searchig for him all over, much like in finding Nemo. Well, my excuse is, it was an accident - after all, I had my eyes closed!
Deep dives
The first competition day had me feeling like a very small, shallow freediver, when I was the second to start with an announcement of 52m! My diving was still broken, though, so I turned early, while Berangere, who was first, had a beautiful dive with a pb in competition of 42m. Things continued well with Julie Gautier setting a new French national record with easy 68m CW, and Alexej Molchanov doing the same for Russia with a dive to 91m. He was followed by his mother, who went to finally reclaim her CW record in the worst conditions of the day, with a current down to 15m, plus waves and flying water on the surface. Watched by very nervous coach Bill Stromberg, she came up as clean and easy as you like and once again proved herself as an incredibly impressive athlete. Carlos Coste was the last to dive, with an annoucement of 98m FIM - after he had made the safety crew very twitchy with a divetime of 4:25, he was thrown by a mix of narcosis and the surface conditions, which meant that he dipped his airways underwater and got a red card. He says he now knows what he has to improve (speed?), though, and will try to do so on the last day of comeptition.
Winram entertaining the gang
In the evening, a tired crew of freedivers gathered in the restaurant for the usual enomous plates of pasta. Challenged to a game of chess by Venezuela, Germany took a heavy beating - well, blonde, see above - and left Russia in the shape of Alexej to show the world once again that Russians have chess in their blood. Meanwhile, William Winram was entertaining the entire bar by doing his best raving-lunatic-psycho-impression, wearing a pair of sunglasses he took from our charming and very patient waitress, while sporting his new mad hairdo. Now a word on this: when he arrived, his hair was cut shortish, perfectly normal, looking rather handsome in a touseled, wind-and-weather kind of way. Being who he is, Will soon found out what he could do to it with the assistance of salt water, and has been trying his best to frighten little children ever since. I have asked his wife Michelle to supply us with a picture, so you can all see for yourself!
The second day had only ten freedivers in the competition, all others were smart and decided to rest. Those of us who got out of bed to go out there were greeted as usual by Michelle, who was there to check freedivers' warm-up times and boat schedules and supply general support. She has fixed Berangere's seasickness (Berangere has been throwing up on the surface...) by pressing a magic button on her wrist, which I think she should mark permanently so someone else (i.e the buddy) can press it when needed in the future. Anyway, there she was, with a board saying: "mild current between 0-10m, small waves, temp 22C" . Well. "Mild" is clearly open to interpretation as we soon found out when we were flying off sideways with the warm up lines during our hangs! Needless to say, a lot of dives were cut short. There were however a few hardcore divers, who just made it in spite of everything - the most impressive of them being Manolis Giankos from Greece, who swam down unassisted to 58m, setting a national record! Aparently, freedivers weren't the only ones having a hard time - Fred Buyle only managed to avoid being swept into the competition line while taking pictures by employing what were described by a fellow cameraman as "eel like movements", snaking his pretty long body around the line at the last minute.
William Winram, of France, had announced an impressive world record in no fins with 88m, but decided to save his strength for tomorrow with hopes of improved conditions. Notice something? Now this time it is not a mistake by the reporter....more on this will follow!
Part 4