As I wrote before, my FRC depth-diving is going great lately. My improved equalization and relaxation makes that these dives are very pleasurable for me.
Last saturday I went freediving with some dutch freediver friends, we took the 6 meter small boat called 'de sloper', which rouphly translates to 'the demolisher', to a nearby lake that has the deepest dive spot of this flat country (as far as I know). I had plans, hopes and dreams of grabbing some of the mud 50 meters or so below us and bring it back up. It was a perfect day for some personal bests, the weather was great, the company was good and I felt save with a few fellow freedivers around me that had been way deeper than I ever was. But in this case my planning didn't work out. I had put the pressure on too much and was fighting with things during my dive that I thought I had left behind me some time ago. Looking back I could see my doubts in the fact that I started packing, as if that would be equalization easier. Because of this and the fact that I am already quite buoyant I had to work much harder to get down to the freefall phase. Here I was already stressed while I still had to battle my mask. I was afraid for a mask squeeze, I forgot to flex the muscle behind my ears to open the tubes a little. Argh, very frustrating it was! With mixed feelings I went home, overthinking my 'sins'. Mind you! It was a great day but I had things to learn.
Then came today, diving again to max 25 meters so that calls for frc dives. My head still contained some green slimy stuff that luckely went away somewhat after a few dives. After some regular frc dives I removed my mask and put on my noseclip and goggles. I filled the goggles with lake water and went down just for the experience. I had done this last year as well and then only came as far as 12 meter, just below the thermocline. I don't know what it is yet, perhaps I got used to the temperature better or maybe pulling the wetsuithood-top as far down as possible helped but the 7C at the bottom did not bother me much and the freefall from 5 to 25 meters felt long, dreamy and fantastic. At about 10 meters I took a mouthfill, building up positive pressure with my cheeks so as not to move my tongue around when it is not yet needed (thanks Simo! I loose a lot less mouthfills this way!), put the soft palette so that I can blow/push air against the noseclip, flex that muscle near my ears and then just feel the temperature drop, feel my hand glide over the guide rope and hear the pitch of my lanyard brushing the rope get higher and higher as I pick up speed.
This was my most enjoyable freefall so far - loved it!
To finish our day at the lake we went looking near some manmade objects and spotted two
Northern Pikes (actually this
Snoek), one was really really fat and big, while the other was hanging at a depth for 2 meters for 15 minutes while we could get very close to it (10cm), close enough that we could basically count it's teeth.
What a day to be a freediver!
