1 0 5 m (dnf)

I think I mentioned some time ago that my aim for diving this year, was to reach 100 meters. And yes, without fins. Well, I'm proud to announce that it ain't just an aim anymore. Friday November 21st I dived 105 meters without fins (that is DNF, dynamic no fins).

Sami had been telling me that diving without warm up (that is, no dives before the long dive) would be good idea. I, however, had been against the idea because I always felt that diving is easier after couple of dives. Now I decided to give it a try, and yes, it worked!

Unfortunately I forgot to stop my stopwatch after the dive, but according to my rather standard speed this dive took bit more than 2 minutes.

DNF 87

This is sort of training diary post.

19.9.2008, Vesikko

warmup:
12 times 25 meters in 12 minutes, such that about 30sec dive + rest -> total 1 min each.

3 times 50 meters, with bit longer rests (couple mins, did not take time, should have).

approx 6 minutes rest.

87 meters. Quite easy, bit weird "tickling" in legs at some point and due to this I did not take the dive to absolute max.

http://www.freedivingfinland.net/results/index.php?op=profile&diver_id=105

How deep can you go?

Very.

We went today for a dive at Leinonen, a small lake nearby Ylämylly. It's nice place to dive since it has very clear water. However, this time we were not that interested about the visibility, but the depth of the lake. So, the idea today was to make deep dives.

Sami had this buoy/weight/line system with him that allows safe dives to depths. Every time someone dives he/she is attached to this system with a short piece of string; the other end at the line and other to divers wrist. At the weight, which naturally is in the depths, in order to make it easier to see where the "goal" is. Today it was around 20 meters.

I first did couple of dives to somewhere between 10 and 15 meters. It felt a bit strange, since I normally dive in places where at these depths you would already see the bottom. However, I got used to it quite soon and was able to enjoy the dives.

After some practice dives I decided that it is time to go for the max. After somewhat easy dive now 20.6 meters is the deepest I've been (without scuba diving gear, this was freediving). However, when I was come back to the surface I noticed another line about 5 meters from our line (to which I was attached to). This made me feel very strange, as I thought that I had somehow escaped the line. Luckily this was not the case, but the other line was (most likely) a old fishing net buoy.

Spearfishing at Hanko

On August 30th I attended (again) a Spearfishing competition. This was held in Hanko and was the fifth competition I attended this year. Actually, I attended all the other competitions except Finnish Championships. There is one more competition to come (end of this month), but it seems I won't attend it.

Well. This competition in Hanko was not that big success for me. I went there in order to achieve ranking points, and in order to get these points you need to get fish. Good guess; I did not get anything.

I spent almost the whole competition time by looking for flatfishes. For me this meant diving constantly to somewhere between 4-8 meters. Bad mistake. All the fish was either very deep (around 20 meters) or very shallow (max 2m) water. E.g. one person who was in top three got several flatfishes only from about 1.5 to 2 meters. Thus, no diving needed. Damn.

This time I, however, was wise enough to spend my last minutes of the competition wisely; by taking photos. Here are three selected shots from the competition:

Colorful algae.


Jellyfish


Spot two spearfishers.

Btw. this competition also ended the spearfishing season 2008. The next competition in end of September is already next season's competition. In Finnish ranking I ended up being 29th with 54.71 points. I got points from three competitions. If I would have got my normal points (about 20) from either of the two competitions where I got no fish I would have had chance to be somewhere around positions 24.-26.

Spearfishing, conference and blisters

I'm now at Vienna, Austria. I'm attending the EdMedia 2008 conference. The conference is huge and thus it is quite difficult to decide which sessions to attend and what to see. I have to admit that I do prefer smaller scale conferences where you have the chance to see most (or at least significant part of) the presentations. Also, in smaller scale conferences you usually also learn to know more people.

Anyway, I been walking quite a lot. I made a bad mistake when selecting my shoes for the trip. As a result, I have a huge blister (about size of half of my thumb) on both feet (just below toes). These are really painful when walking.. but "no pain, no gain".

Last saturday I attended a spearfishing competition called Dödörens Cup at Hanko. This time I got plenty of fish, namely 8 flounders. Unfortunately 3 of these were too small, but still got 45 points. With these points, I ended up being 9th. That's my best results so far. Second best is 19th so this was quite an improvement. Unfortunately, the winner of the competition got 183 points, and thus my ranking points ended up being only 24.59 (I'm currently 21st at overall ranking).

I'm attending next competition this weeks Saturday (if I'm just able to wake up early enough) and I hope it goes as well as the previous competition.

Competitive Fishing with no Fishes

The title of this post more or less describes how weekends competition went. Thus, no fish. Luckily, I was not the only person who had the same problem. Out of bit less than 40 competitors, only 9 got fish. I did not even take any photos, since I desperately tried to get that fish.

Water was somewhat between 9 to 13 degrees of celsius. I did 71 dives (which is not that much, considering 4 hours competition time) and maximum depth was 6.7 meters. Dive times were pathetic, somewhere around 50-60 secs....

Summers first competition

I'm going to attend the first spearfishing competition of the season tomorrow at Kotka. I have not been able to practice that much but I hope to catch at least some fish. Anyway, it is always nice to go spearfishing in nice waters where there is (at least) a chance to catch big fish. Of course I won't get any big fishes, but it is always nice to know that it might be possible.

Underwater photos

Last Saturday we went to dive to a small lake (lampi in Finnish) called Leinonen. Water there is quite clear and due to this it is quite a nice place to dive and take photorgraphs. We spent in water (which was around 12-14 degrees of celcius on surface) around one hour. Here are some of the photos I took.

A crawfish in it's cave.

Perch.

Roe of perch. Perch is quite an interesting fish since it is the only (according to my knowledge) fish that produces these weird ribbons of roe.

Some underwater trees.

Again, a tree.

And, finally, a tree!

And, yes. One video as well. A school of fishes (särki).

DNF 80m

Yesterday I managed to break my previous record on dynamic no fins diving. Current record, after quite an difficult dive, is exactly 80 meters. Not bad.

Aim for this spring was 75 meters until end of may.

Glasses still missing, DNF 67.

So, my glasses are spending some quality time in the water purification system of Vesikko. Last friday I took a long long piece of iron wire with me to Vesikko in order to try to "fish" the glasses from the pipes, but with no luck. Luckily, even I did not get my glasses, I did do a new record on dnf, currently it is 67 meters.

How to lose your glasses efficiently

This is a true story.

Yesterday I was at participating the water running session organized by Louhelan Woima. I do this every week. Water running is quite fun and efficient sport, and it is interesting that you get all sweaty in water. Thus, after the session ends, you are usually feeling very hot, and thus I usually tend to dive a bit afterwards.

I dived after the session, as usual, and before diving I placed my eyeglasses to the gutter at the edge of the pool. This is (or has been) safe place for glasses since no-one can step on them nor they will float to the bottom of the pool.

After the dive I tried to get my glasses, but missed them with the first attempt. This moved the glasses a bit to the left, and I tried to grab them again, but they were lost! Unbelievable! In the gutter there is the suction pipe of the pool, with which the water is passed to the cleaning system. The suction was so strong that my glasses were sucked in to the pipe and they are now somewhere in between the pipe and the water filter of the whole Vesikko swimming pool.

My glasses will eventually float to the filter, but I'm quite skeptic about the condition in which they will reach the filter. Also, no-one knows how long time it will take. Luckily I have a set of spare glasses, but naturally these are not as good as the ones I just lost. Insurance company will naturally pay a part of the cost when I buy new ones, but I will lose around 100 euros due to this incident!

Since my eyesight is very poor, it was really interesting to get back home with bike.

Lesson learnt: the gutter of the swimming pool is safe place for your glasses, but make sure that you place them far enough from the suction pipes!

PS. Current record in DNF is 62 meters.

DNF 58

Yes, it's getting better. However, now it might take a while before I'll try next time. I'm approaching my current limits, and it would be boring to not beat the record when trying.

Thus. More practice needed.

Aim: 75m in May.

DNF 50m

Some might say that I have really weird hobbies. And to be honest that is actually true. Due to my spearfishing hobby, I some time ago joined local diving club in order to be able to participate competitions. Due to joining the club I met couple of local freedivers (Sami and Saana) and they have got me enthusiastic about pure freediving as well.

Yesterday at Rantakylä pool Sami let me try his neck weight. Neck weight is just what it sounds; like a collar with lots of lead in it (this case 3.3 kg) and it is supposed to make your horizontal diving easier. I was bit skeptic about it first, but after the first kick from the pool end I was totally amazed! Such a small thing can make your diving so much easier!

After about 45 minutes of swimming Sami asked if I would be willing to try dive a bit longer length than normal 25m (one pool length). I hesitated first, but then decided to give it a try. With very small preparation I quite easily dived 50 meters (that is, two pool lengths). Amazing, I was so sure I could do just about 35 meters or so. Anyway, let's see when this record will be broken. (50 meters is lot for me, but if you check the Finnish ranking [dynamic,2008,M,all], you'll notice that it really ain't that much ).

Oh. Forgot to say that there was no fins involved in this attempt. Abbreviation DNF in the title of this post comes from Dynamic No Fins.