Day Five

Yesterday I suffered testosterone narcosis. I am competitive about everything, so even competitive breathing did not sound unreasonable. In order to score highly in the balloon event I almost turned myself inside out to get all my breath into the balloon. In the end, something went pop in my chest and now I was suffering. I was fine standing up but sitting, lying or anything that put weight on my chest put me in agony, it was one of the most painful things I've ever felt. Despite being totally exhausted, I never slept for more than 15min continuously all night and felt like I was having a continuous asthma attack. During one of the empty lung dives, Shona had damaged a muscle in her neck, and as a girl obviously didn't moan half as much as I did.

Our last diving day was another early start to get to the deeper sites offshore. I was in a lot of pain, I hadn't slept and I was exhausted. Since the start of the course, the idea of the deep dive on the final day both scared me and excited me but now I knew there was no way I'd be able to do it. Breathing normally caused a stabbing pain in my chest, I knew that a four stage breath or empty lung diving would be impossible. Steaming out on the boat I went through the motions of kitting up but inside I was gutted because I knew what would happen. As well as being competitive I am also stubborn and if I had a week on a beach to recover then I would probably have pushed myself but I was flying home and the thought of 14hrs on a crowded plane feeling the way I did seemed daft. Monica encouraged me, I jumped in the water and had just enough lung power to swear loudly. Even the effort of breathing against 0.5m of water pressure on my chest was too much and the swim to the boat ladder was the hardest I've ever done.

For everyone else, the dive began with five minutes of facial immersion breathing to trigger the mammalian diving reflex. Monica and Eusebio had rigged two descent lines, Shona dived with Monica while Jeff, Matt and John dived with Eusebio. Next there was a breathe up followed by an empty lung dive. Recovery then the breathe up again, then more empty lung dives. Finally the breathe up for the deep dive began. Agitation, oxygenation and relaxation, a good 10-12 minutes of preparation and then when ready, a final four stage breath and dive. Everyone in the group was making deep dives in the 20-30m range, Shona said afterwards it was only the end of the line that stopped her going deeper. The increase in everyone's ability in the space of five days was amazing.

On the second dive site Monica taught the NPSA training technique, negative pressure static apnea, an exercise for use in places like swimming pools where depth is limited. You take a breath, exhale and descend about 0.5m and stay there until you need air... surface, inhale, exhale as you descend and stay there until you need to breathe... and keep repeating as long as you can. Strangely, being on the surface is unpleasant because the CO2 leaves you gasping for air, being underwater brings relief: Shona described it as how a fish must feel when pulled out of the water.

Back on shore I bought the strongest painkillers I could find (I knew they were good when the lable said "do not use if undergoing treatment for drug addiction") and washed a handful down with a Singha beer, within about 30min I felt great, ready to go and dive. Instead we went back to the classroom for one final session, a review of the day's diving and some more training techniques. Umberto Pellizari had developed apnea training tables, one for training for tolerance to low oxygen and the other for tolerance to high CO2. On the oxygen table you hold your breath for 2min, breathe for 2min, hold for 2:15min, breathe for 2min, hold for 2:30min, breathe for 2min, etc., going up in 15s steps until you reach your maximum breath-hold time. This teaches the body to tolerate low ppO2 better. The CO2 table is similar, though this time you keep the breath-hold time constant and reduce the the interval by 15s each time so you have less and less time to recover.

Eusebio lived a lot in London and so couldn't train and used apnea walks. This is simply walking as far as you can while holding your breath. Monica recommends yoga everyday for training. Eusebio also does pack stretching: you take a four stage breath, pack a few times and do stretching exercises. "But do it somewhere soft, you might black-out". He said that a lot about freediving training techniques. We also tried the Frenzel-Fattah equalisation method where the epiglottis is used to pump air into the ears rather than the usual Valsalva method that scuba divers use. Frenzel uses less air so works better on empty lung or deep freedives. A final technique was Eusebio's patented check to see if you are liable to black out during training that day. "But do it somewhere soft..."

All in all the course was amazing, by far the most rewarding course I've ever done in diving. It also gave me one of the best dives I've ever done. I was astounded by the improvement in such a short time and taught me how to dive again. What really amazed me, and what I think everyone on the course discovered too, was just what our bodies really are capable of. Cheesey as it sounds, because Monica & Eusebio told us we could do it, I think we believed them. They are great people, I can't say enough good things about them.