25th July 2024
This f**king glottis
I’m rather bummed out about how my dive went today. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be this difficult. Ok, I should stop catastrophising. Other than an early turn, the dive wasn’t actually so bad. Besides, I’m already super happy to get to dive like this.
25th July 2024 Open Water Training Log:
20m FIM slow dive — dive time: 1’53”
This dive felt pretty nice. I freefalled after taking my mouthfill all the way down to 20m. I didn’t want the freefall to end, ended up going back the stopper and hitting my head on the bottom plate. I hung for a little while before slowing making my way back up towards the surface.
55m CWTB attempt (early turn at 50m) — dive time: 1’59”
I was pretty anxious prior to this dive, but I reminded myself that this was just a deeper EQ practice, with no pressure to go down all the way. The start was quite relaxed and I took my mouthfill at 15m. However, my mouthfill was very leaky most of the way down. Before, when I was doing sequential, I knew it was happening, I didn’t really notice the leak. But today, with constant pressure, the leak was extremely obvious. It’s most likely because I’m not relaxed enough. The tension in my core likely created some negative pressure which caused the leak. I remember trying to push my mouthfill a little more whenever I heard the leak, but it just leaked more. I most likely ended up tensing up unknowingly, which exacerbated the leak.
This dive was slower than my previous dives to similar depths. Both my descent and ascent were slower than usual, but I was clean on the surface, so the brush I had with hypoxia was an anomaly — likely a culmination of many different factors.
The slower speed could be explained by me prioritising relaxation. I remember being quite relaxed on this dive, especially after the turn on the way up, since this stage is when I have a tendency to freak out. Interestingly, my heard rate dropped to 47bpm on this dive. It had started dropping rapidly a bit before I turned. This is the most my heart rate has ever dropped. It’s as if I was asleep. No wonder I felt so fresh on the surface.
19.9m FRC w 1m mouthfill — MF: 2.7
18.9m FRC w 1m mouthfill — MF: 2.6
Admittedly, I didn’t do a long enough breathe-up before going on these two dives. I felt tired on the way down, and I felt that I wasn’t able to make use of my mouthfill well.
33.6m FIM mouthfill practice
I did a small EQ workshop with Lucia yesterday. She told me to charge at 15m, then relax and go all the way to 30m. I think this dive went pretty well. I was able to do a big and full charge at 15m, more so than any of my other deep dives. mouthfill management, at least the start of it, went pretty well. I did one more pull after I charged and then started freefalling. I had some contractions, but no apparent leaks — so much better than my 55m attempt. At the point I turned, I had just transitioned to the t-lock, hence the delay between my alarm sounding and my turn.
This dive felt very refreshing, given that it was my first proper FIM dive in a long while. I’m enjoying how in control I felt.
In this session, I also did 5 safety dives, of which 2 were deep-ish. Em was trying to match a PB dive and he did another 72m dive afterwards. I was on higher alert since he was hypoxic 2 days ago when doing the same dive. He was mostly fine today, maybe a little on the edge since his lips were bluish. His recovery breaths were kind of slow on the second dive, though he might’ve been doing it on purpose. I’ll have to ask him.
Anyways, today has been good. I started off being pretty bummed, but now, everything seems pretty ok. I’ve come so far and I’m still making really good progress.
26/27th July 2024 Open Water Training Plan:
Buoyancy check (-500g)
55m (FIM to 15m, bifins down and up) — dive time: 2’05”
4x FRC w 1m mouthfill
30m FIM mouthfill practice.
Not completely sure if I’ll dive on 26th or 27th. But looking forward!