Guestbook readded

Just readded my old guestbook. I´ll find it on the side - beyond the blog archive.
Preparing my trip to spain at the moment. We are leaving on the 10th of september.

First Day back in the base

Yesterday I had my first day back in the naval base in Eckernförde.
In the morning I had a appointment with a navy press officer.
He wrote down my story about my training and the attempt.

Click here to read the article on marine.de (in german)

Also found this Radio-Interview from Bayern 2 (in german)

Good-Bye-Run

On my last night in dahab I was invited for Dinner by Kate and Dean.
We had fresh fish for dinner and it was probably the best fish I´ve every tryed.
On that evening I started to say good bye to Lotta and Peter.
In the morning I went to freedive dahab and sayed good bye to Natalie, Kate and Dean.
For breakfast I was invited by Alex from Spain. For Lunch I was invited by Akim :-)
My last stop on my good-bye-run was desert divers. I told Nikki to take good care about my house while she is renting it.
In the minibus I felt quite bad when I saw the sign "Good Bye Dahab" outside of dahab.
Yes, leaving is always hard. But it keeps this place special to me.
Then right into the plane and flying for 4,5 hours to munich. Back in germany I rented a car (Alfa 159) to drive to the navel base in eckernförde. This journey across the country took me almost 10 hours. Back in the base I got congratulations from all my buddys... Now I´m waiting for my next adventure

Calming Down

The day after my record dive I used for recovering and for my house.
I got Aircon in one of the bedroom. Unfortunadly one of the workers felt off the roof and was a bit injured. After I did first aid his buddys drove him to the hospital. Poor guy :-(
The rest of the day I spend with friends in el salam. I really felt the energy coming back into my body. A nice day :-)

GERMAN RECORD !!!

Today I woke up with a mixed feeling. I was full of energy but I must admit I was quite nervous.
At 10am we left from Freedive Dahab Office to Blue Hole and the condition on the spot was quite good.
Even my family arrived to watch my attempt.
I went into the water and with every second in the water I lost the feeling of beeing nervous.

I took my time to relax and when I felt right I gave Lotta the signal to start the Countdown (4min)
On Official Top I started my dive down to 71m. Again the fight against the bouyance. I was so used to 4kg weight. Now I doved with only 2kg. I started falling and calmness overcome my whole body. I could feel that dive respond - I could feel the blood shift. After about 30-35m I filled my mouth with air to equaliaze below the point where my lung is compressed to RV.
Down at 71m I took the TAG without a problem. The way back felt very good and when I saw Natalie I knew that the dive was going to be perfect.
Back at the surface....Proper surface protocol....waiting until the white card....THEN CHEERING :-) NEW GERMAN RECORD.........The old german record made by Tom Sietas exaclty 4 Years before (09/08/2004).

After this dive I decided to rest for 1 hour and try for another record in "Free Immersion".
On that dive I doved down to 76m but I gave the surface protocol to the saftey diver instead giving it to the Judge. The rules say that it is not a record because of failing of the protocol.
But it was one of the best dives I´ve ever had. I felt so relaxed. The divetime was 3:24 min and I enjoyed every second of that dive - even when it was no record. After the dive I realised that I injured my foot on the robe...It´s the 2008 scar...I have one from 2006 aswell :-)

In the end I can say that I reached my main goal. 6 Weeks of training...6 Weeks of Up´s and Down´s...6 Weeks of emotions. I was a long journey. Now I feel very tired but on the other hand very released.
Tonight we´re gonna celebrate :-)

Back to Confidence - PART II

Another great day in Paradise...

At 10am Natalie, Akim and me left to Blue Hole for a Training session.
It was about time to get back to the depth after the two failed attempts.

Back in the water I felt that the felling started to come back. For the warm-up I did two dives to about 30m on FRC. A group of scuba divers stayed close to the robe and watched our training. The sound of the regulators was a bit anoying but they left before our deep attempts.

Today I tryed the weight setup from yesterday. I doved with 50 % less weight (only 2kg).
The dive started...
In the beginning I had to fight against the bouyance. I realised that I didn´t start falling like usually. So I lost a few seconds on my descent. But the feeling down was muss stronger - more confident.
The way back felt so easy. It felt so nice to have that much bouyance on the way back.
In the end I reached 72,6m in a divetime of 2:21 min.
Tomorow is the big chance :-)

Back to Confidence

Today I had a very nice day. In the morning my father and me fixed my bike and some new lamps in my house.
In the afternoon I rested and try to focus on what to eat and when to eat. The plan was to go for a training in the back at 4pm with akim.
After we set up the rope I started with my first dive. It was quite strange. The contractions came very early and I felt uncomfortable. Afterwards I changed some of my weight setup and tryed some dives. On my 5mm suit I´m neutraly bouyanced at 16m. It felt much safer. In the end I got all my confidence back by doing a 31m dive with took 3:30 min. I was so happy. Akim had a funny LMC on one of his dives. It´s quite bad to make fun out of such a thing but we both laughed because the face he was making on that was way to funny :-)
After the session I tryed to show my nude behind to the people on the other robe but they didn´t looked :-) Usually the white whale is not spoted in the red sea ;-)

Fish Blues

Yesterday I went for a scuba dive with my family at Lighthouse. We saw a lot of thing and that dive. It was nicer than I thought :-)

The evening before I was freediving at the islands with Akim and he showed me how to attract fishes with noises. He use this for spearfishing. Ofcourse we didn´t used a speargun.
It was very funny.

I really try to get some energy back but it is more difficult than I thought :-) But I feel fine now.

Chilling Down

The last attempt was a mess aswell...The rope was set wrong (or the gauges was wrong), the tag in the depth was a quite stuck, so I had a big effort to get it. I spend 10 sec down at 73m depth. The robe should be set at 71m...well, divetime was 12 sec longer than usual and because of all this I had a small blackout at the surface - AGAIN.
I got the chance to redo the dive in a few days. Time to get some energy back.

Yesterday my parents arrived to do some scuba diving. They should stay at my house but it is way to hot for them without aircon. Well, I moved in into my house yesterday....AND I LOVE IT!!!

Unfortunadly my best trainingbuddy and friend Rahel left for sweden yesterday :-(

Well, I rest for the next days and then I try again. Hopefully without complications :-)

2nd and 3rd Competition Day - Blackouts and Mistakes

Just came from Blue Hole...
I´m so disapointed since 3 Days I work on that german record in constant weight and the last two days was very worse.
During the last two days I had a small blackout at the surface...
The reason for the blackout yesterday was bad ears and massive pain during the dive...I reached the depth but I was very stressed because of that and at the surface...well...BO.
Today I felt much better in my ears. Bettina from switzerland gave me some medication for the ears. It was quite good. During the dive I felt quite relaxed but at the bottom I had a bit of effort to get the tag...it was quite strong :-). Well, I didn´t thought that on this dive I gonna have problems. But back at the surface...BO again!!! I´m so disapointed and I feel very weak.
After the dive two watches showed almost 2 meters more than I annonced....73m.
Lotta sayed in a few days I will get the possibility to make that attempt again.
....
Time to get some energy back.

First Competition Day - No Record....Yet

Today was the first competition day.
The morning started very good. I had a nice long sleep and when I woke up I fixed some of my equipment (wetsuit, ankle weight).
Then I went out to Blue Hole with the first group. The Team of Freedive Dahab prepared the Conter Ballast System and in the meantime I started to do some stretching.
I felt very good and strong.
Sara Champbell was coaching and supporting me in the water and during my warm up´s. With every second more in the water I felt more comfortable. I did two FRC´s and they felt very good. One was to 21m the other one was to 32m.
Then my BIG Dive started. During the first meters my ears would not work properly but after 20m everything was fine and easy. The freefalling felt good and at the bottom plate I reached the TAG easy. The way back was easy aswell and I had almost no contractions. Back at the surface I did a big mistake. My hand touched the bouy before my head was out of the water. The regulations of AIDA say that this is a yellow card and NO NATIONAL RECORD. Well, it was a bit stupid of me and tomorow I will do a proper dive without this mistake.
My computer sayed that I went down to 72,3 m in 2:08 min.
For tomorow I annonced 72m in constant weight...another chance for me.