Shark Freediving

Another update from camp Yasemin Dalkilic. She’s back in the deep water again and enjoying it a lot. They did  4 days of training at David Lee his place in Jamaica, which has a maximum depth of 51 meters.

But if you can dive to 51 meters on empty lungs, as she says herself, or dive to 51 meters and stay there comfortably for 40 seconds without any problems, you know she hasn’t forgotten how to dive.

Good video again of the depth diving below, with commentary from Rudi.

Two days later and another world record for Russian Natalia Molchanova. Today she did a free immersion dive to 90 meters. That’s 5 meters deeper then her own former world record from 2008.

AIDA International recognizes her as the athlete with the most world records behind her name, beating Herbert Nitsch with 1 world record, who stands at 25 world records.

Congratulations to Natalia and her outstanding new record and complete list of accomplishments. The dive took place in Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt during the Ruler of the Deep competition organized by the Only One Apnea Center.

Last time I head something about Yasemin Dalkilic, her trainer and husband Rudi and their FREE organization was in March 2007. Now more then two years later, Yasemin is back to set a new world record.

Yasemin about her absence from the sport: After 5 years away from the sport of freediving, I’m coming back to attempt my 9th world record on December 27th, 2009. After setting 8 world records from 1999 to 2003, a pancreatic tumor forced me to retire in 2003, but I battled and survived it, and went on to fulfill many personal dreams. I became a professional musician, a computer programmer, a wine sommelier and a restaurant owner, and yet, the call of the depths kept ringing loud and clear within me.

I’m very glad that she’s back and even more about the fact that she won the cancer fight. It’s still unclear which discipline and under which organization she’s going to attempt the record with, but in the mean time she’s really back into action. One of the things they always got correct was the excellent marketing through delivering news, photo’s, video’s and all kinds of marketing of their actions. So take a look at her website and view the video’s below!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Winram freeclimbing – photo Fred Buyle

What were Frederic Buyle and William Winram doing aboard a 30-meter sailing boat in the turquoise waters of the South of France? Well, it is summer time after all, one could think they were on vacation. On the contrary, the two gentlemen freedivers worked twentyone straight days for the purpose of filming one of several high-definition documentaries featuring freediving. Thankfully, Frederic Buyle and William Winram found a way to beat the “freediver blues” of having to dive daily in rather cold waters (15° C) all the while pursuing their quest to produce unusual underwater photographs, like the now infamous “A Beer Chez Dean” taken in the Bahamas last April.

In the little spare time away from the daily “chores” of having to dive for the cameras, they decided to take on freeclimbing. Freeclimbing, you ask? « It’s great », says Winram tongue-in-cheek « I am usually afraid of heights, but with underwater freeclimbing, I feel safe ». Indeed, no need for a harness, ropes or someone to belay at the bottom. The only caution one needs to exercise while practicing this activity is to mind the climbing surface: do not touch the coral !

Buyle and Winram’s next venture will be taking place in the beautiful Ionian Islands (Greece) later this month until early September. Aboard a fully-equipped 15-meter liveaboard yacht, they will take 8 participants out for a sailing and freediving experience of a lifetime. Tempted? A couple of spots are left for the second cruise week. More info on Ocean Encounters website: www.oceanencounters.net.

Carlos Coste

It is already 3 years ago since Carlos Coste his accident in Egypt. He was back in competition in 2007 during the world championships in Maribor, Slovenia. And now he’s planning to break his dynamic with fins record he set during that competition, 187 meters.

Carlos is still training hard and has already surpassed his personal record in training by 6 metrers and he hopes to do 200+ meters during the world championships in Denmark.

Glad to hear that Carlos is still working hard and that he’s still improving. Working on his handicap that he got from the accident in 2006 is very hard, but with intensity and perseverance he’s working on it. Good luck!

Umberto Pelizzari

Freediving videos are always a great inspiration and I really like to use them to enrich the content on my website. The Underwater Channel has for sure some really good video’s over there. First there were already some freediving video’s by Sara Campbell, but now Umberto Pelizzari has teamed up with the Underwater Channel.

So in July we will see three Umberto videos of him freediving in the Maldives with whale shark, manta rays and coral reefs. The first with the whale shark was already great, but now the second video is live and Umberto is swimming with Manta Rays and this video is even better. It’s  great to see that he shows respect to the underwater life by not touching it, but just try to be close and blend in.

Really worth to take a look. Only comment I have to say about the Underwater channel is that I really don’t like the fact that you can’t embed the videos on your own website. The web is open and content should be moved freely around. The reason I didn’t report about the first video here was the fact that I couldn’t embed it in the post. The Underwater Channel has some short 30 second versions of the video’s on Youtube, but thaose are just teasers, so I don’t even embed them here.

Today Guillaume Nery improved his 72 meter constant without fins national French record to a depth of 75 meters! Guillaume has made big progress during the competition he is doing these performances in. It seems that he’s interested in becoming one of the top CNF specialists out there.

It took him 3:03 minutes to take the tag at 75 meters and return safely to the surface. It was the easiest dive he has done during this competition. Tomorrow he will relax and do a Free Immersion dive on the last day of the competition.

Today Guillaume Nery set a new national French record in the discipline constant weight without fins (CNF). He dived without his fins to a depth of 72 meters during the 2nd mediterranean freediving meeting. Guillaume about his dive:

The dive was nice. I was of course a little more tired than 2 days ago at 65m, but very clear at the surface. Right after the dive, I felt all the lactic acid burning every part of my body as I have never experienced before!

Guillaume started blogging in English 2 weeks ago and updates his blog regularly. You can read about this record here.

Herbert Nitsch

Today at 14:30 local Greek time, Herbert Nitsch did an incredible 107 meter dive in the Skandalopetra discipline. He did this in the city Lindos on the island Rhodos.

Inspired by Haggis Statti, the discipline consists of taking a rock on a rope and letting yourself drop as deep as you can, and coming back up. More info about this spectacular discipline here.

Herbert used a 10 kilo weight and the dive took him 3:58 minutes to complete. He was in no hurry, because before coming up he was blowing some bubble rings and swimming around at depth, performing his famous deco-stops before surfacing.

After this record Herbert is going to prepare for the world champions were he has to defend his title. After that he’s going for a new no limits record and at that same event he wants to get the variable weight record, which is the last discipline in which he hasn’t set a record yet.

The first video is the dive itself and the second one an interview afterwards.

Today Sara Campbell did a second attempt to a 100 meter constant weight dive. And while she reached the tag and  took it back up, she had a blackout a few meters below the surface.

She attempted this attempt during the Blue Hole No More competition. A competition with wr status in Dahab, organized by Lotta and Linda from DahabFreedivers. 3 days of competition in all 3 competition depth disciplines with a maximum of 120 meters.

After the failed attempt Sara commented that she will try again to get this milestone of a record on Saturday, if she feels fit enough.