Sled and rain in Athens

I finally had to give in and face the truth: I was not going to make it to the world championships in the Bahamas, much as I would have liked to go. Fellow sad no-goers Liv and George managed to talk Stavros into rescuing us from the approaching winter blues and organise a mini training week near Athens. We were joined by Dave Tranfield and Greg, whom Stavros recruited during a course, and who had thought freedivers were reasonably normal people until he met us lot.

I was so looking forward to seeing the sun, I happily packed my bag full of all the items a girl needs during such an occasion: a range of bikinis, denim miniskirt, shorts, assortment of flip flops, several pairs of sunglasses, sunscreens, aftersuns, skimpy tops, etc etc. I was just done with all this when my friend Jens called me, to complain about me going off to sunny shores while normal people were stuck back in the rain. He asked me what the weather would be like, and I said, no idea, sunny, of course, what else? Ha! Shouted the man and went to check the forecast on the internet. Well. I detected a hint of glee in his voice as he read out the bad news. They involved such things as rain, clouds, storms, and freezing temperatures. I put the phone down, unpacked my bag and filled it with fleeces and woolly hats.

The week was wonderful, in spite of the rather accurately forecast weather conditions. There was not much to do in the afternoons, so we had nice picnic lunches, hung around drinking tea, read, slept. Stavros and Giota took fantastic care of us, driving us around, cooking us lovely dinners, and generally making sure we were having a great time. Most days, I dived with the sled, doing head down variable to 60m, to practise equalization. This was the fastest I have ever gone: I reached 60m in 27sec the first time round! What was most beautiful, though, was diving the mini blue hole they have near Athens. It is more like a black hole, really, as it looks completely dark from above. There is a down current which means the descent feels amazing, simply effortless. At the bottom, the current disappears into a tunnel that has been blocked off to stop stupid divers from going in there. Foivos, who was looking after us lot with amazing safety diving, made me do statics down there, since he has promised to take me spearfishing next time and this was part of the training regime. I stayed for up to one minute, which was a lot nicer than doing a static in the pool, I tell you.

Here is a video Stavros filmed:


Next weeend it’s the Berlin long night of apnea. I have announced DNF. I do not want to do anything at the moment, in fact, I have been overcome by a great feeling of laziness. Anyone want to come and give me a cold? Please?

Note to self: stick to the plan!

This would be a moment for my friend Roland. He would just smile calmly and see everything confirmed that he believes he knows about me, and unfortunately, he is right. Seems like I can be a bit impatient at times, and get overexcited if the diving is going well. Now Roland is forever telling me to chill out, relax, calm down, let the diving come to me. I am beginning to see that he might have a point. Note the sheepish look on my face in the picture, with Martin, and also the lack of Champagne.

It would also be a moment for my fabulous tech diving instructor, Aaron Bruce. One of the first and most important lessons he taught us was “plan the dive, dive the plan”. This is an iron rule when you are going down to the depths of the ocean on trimix, with the invisible but potentially deadly decompression ceiling above your head. It means you are going to plan what you are doing meticulously, and you are going to stick to this – no cutting corners, and most importantly, and here we have thing that would have served me well yesterday: no getting carried away.

So here we were, at the RMC in Wiesbaden. The pool is wonderful, bright and spacious, and has a great vibe. I was suffering from the usual nerves, or maybe not quite, since this time I was busy feeling nervous about the dynamic no fins dive while I was breathing up for static. Nothing like being stressed out by a discipline that is not due for another five hours whilst listening to the countdown for another one. As things were, I had overcome my static low point form earlier in the week and popped up at 5:24, where I stopped because I did not want to tire myself out too much. Did I just say that? I did a static of nearly five and a half minutes and stopped early? Incredible. I am still trying to understand how this has happened. I will share the secret with you as soon as I have figured out which of the yoghurts that I eat is responsible for this mysterious change.

After coaching Martin I was off duty and had five hours to sit around and get more and more stressed out. Talking with Eric van Riet Paap later in the restaurant, he claims that I did not look nervous at all. This comes as a surprise to me, as I am always under the impression that I have “Oh SHIT” written across my forehead in giant letters. I guess he did not hear me say “I want to go home. Can I go home?” to anyone who cared to ask me anything that day. Having been abandoned by my Danish team, who all opted to stay away with flimsy excuses such as work and illness, I found help from Olga Martinez Alvarez, who came and kept me company 20min before my dive. This is very important, as I need to have someone to moan at, which gets rid of some of the nervous energy and distracts me from the fact that it’s nearly time to go. Once underway, all nerves were forgotten, as usual. I had the standard moment of wanting to quit at around fifty meters, but I have figured out a perfect way to get myself over that: I just distract myself with making up various reasons for why I came up early. Playing through the different scenarios and actually planning how I am going to explain the chosen one to Martin keeps me busy for at least 25m. Once I have turned at 75, I can usually push on. It all gets interesting after the 100m turn, because this is when I start to get excited about doing a great dive. At this point the plan should have come into play, which was the following: turn at 125, push off, come up - bingo - have record. Just as I practiced in training only a week ago. I stuck to this perfectly, until, and here is where Aaron will be laughing (do NOT get carried away...), I got quite pleased and excited by the fact that I had pushed off the wall and was still swimming along. It was only six meters! Anyway, I surfaced at 133m, totally forgot to do any decent breathing, took off my goggles and noseclip and squeezed out “I am ok” through a fit of the giggles brought on by the fact that I was already sinking with no hope of recovery. I was still laughing when the two safety divers held me and did not bang my head against the side of the pool in frustration at my own stupidity, as one might have expected. The first thing I said when I was done laughing was: “Oh no. Now I have to do this AGAIN!”

Here we are. Instead of having a party month, as I had planned, I will be training – again – for the long night of Apnea in Berlin, which is coming up in six weeks’ time. Let’s see which lesson I will be learning during that competition.

Counting tiles

I have been busy counting tiles in the pool again. It was hard to get started with this after a week of counting the (admittedly few) groupers in the Greek sea. Funnily enough, motivation for pool training was at an all time low – weird, that. A phone call to Elisabeth confirmed that she was in much the same state, so I hatched a clever plan, kidnapped her boyfriend (coach Martin) and drove back to Aarhus for a much needed four-day-bootcamp. Here I am with training buddy Elisabeth:



We kicked off by going to Spanien. Who would have thought? Somehow, going to Spain to do some static does not sound so bad. Turns out it is a beautiful old swimming pool, right in the centre of Aarhus, where they are mad enough to let a bunch of freedivers do what they like after closing time – just switch off the lights when you leave! Doing some technique training for the dreaded no fins soon made me forget that I was supposed to be in Spain. Martin and Elisabeth were having a lot of fun watching me turn. It would seem that it is impossible to mess up the turns in no fins. Trust me, it is not. I managed to get my bottom sticking out of the water as well as dragging my chest along the tiles. Don’t ask me to explain. Coach Martin was in a state of shock and actually at a loss as to what to do with me for a moment. Next, we did some statics in the whirlpool, sadly without the whirling, which would have been nice. I like changing things ever so often, so opted for a no warm up max, and much to my surprise, managed 5min without too struggle.

Next day we were back at Elisabeth’s private pool, next to her house, where I did not get to observe the secret to the Danish success stories, since they all just sat in the sauna and chatted away. Stig was there and filmed me, followed by some much needed advice. He kindly picked the four worst things (turns...) and kept the rest to himself, so as not to confuse me too much. Training was alternated with eating lots – Elisabeth and Martin are making me – and fun things such as a run on the beach. What I did not count on was the fact that the beaches have mountains here, and Martin made me run up and down, which positively killed me.

After four days, I felt more or less ready again. Then I went off to London and got distracted by a wild party weekend back in Berlin – out till five in the morning Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night – and somewhere in there the Aarhus bootcamp was lost again. Since then, I have been busy in my Elixia pool, trying to remember how to freedive. The panic moment was Monday, when I could not get past 3:30 in static! Tuesday was acceptable, though, so I am feeling half ready for the Rhein-Main cup on Saturday.

Or am I? Shit.Quietly getting nervous here.

Sailing, cooking, catching dinner

I had it all planned out. First, train hard, then, compete in Aarhus for two weeks, then, work hard. Something happened to the “work hard” bit, and that something is called William Winram. Here I am, a good girl, at home, not planning any trips for a change, when I get this phone call from Will. A place has become available on a 15m yacht, cruising, diving, teaching (Fred and Will) around the Ionian Sea. Thinking that I would surely be saved by the non-existence of any flights at such short notice, I went online. Ooops.

A few days after the worlds, I found myself on a boat, about to set sail from the Greek Island of Levkas. With me were Fred Buyle, Will, Chris Marshall from New Zealand whom I met in Aarhus, Kattie Lussier and Kate Adams, plus Sam Tanner and Fabrice Enthoven. Fabrice, who managed to keep from us the important information that he owns a bar and a restaurant in Brussels (am on my way), let slip towards the end of the trip that he knows Fred from “the bar” and that he can testify to the fact that Fred knows how to “make good party”. Seems that Fred in the city is quite different from the “I am a healthy, in tune with the elements, sailor, diver, spearfisher” type person that was on display for the students during the week. On consideration, I guess my “London-Kings Road, handbag, high heels, designer shades, now give me my latte” persona has little to do with the saltwater afro hairdo, frayed denim and bikini top woman on the boat, too. Now Will – I think he might just be the same, wherever. Redneck out of the trailerpark, and all that. Never mind, you’ll get it when you meet him. Here is a picture of sailor-Fred:



First job was to make sure we’d be well supplied. When Will and Fred asked who liked to cook, I made a crucial mistake and stuck my hand up, followed by another crucial mistake in letting the guys go off to buy vegetables on their own. They returned with random items, including, in Greece, on a sailboat, 36°C in the shade, a CABBAGE! Why anyone would want to eat cabbage anyway is a mystery to me, but on a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea? Needless to say, I ignored said item, which turned into a bit of an accident when the thing went off and made the whole fridge reek in the most evil fashion later on.

We had a few incidents involving apnea brain on this trip, the first one in the supermarket, when we all agreed that we needed salt and pepper, but no one put it in the cart. My excuse is, I just did a 6:12 static, which has clearly reduced my brainpower by 50%. It turned out that we needed at least two heads for any mildly complicated task, usually me and Fred. Examples included: turning off the alarm on the autopilot, operating the winch on the mainsail, operating the drain for the shower (this needed three people), and, the worst, switching on the strip light above the stove. I was trying to keep this one quiet, but Fred had no mercy on me and let it out, although I was holding his mouth shut as long as possible: he found me cursing over the pots, trying to turn on what looked like a lamp to me, but was in fact – this is so embarrassing - a blind. You can imagine the hilarity that ensued. Had I not been in charge of dinner, and therefore a VIP on the boat, I think it would have been a lot worse.

Before we got in the water for the first time, we were made to go through a Winram/Buyle tradition: we held a moment of silence. For all the people on the tube in London, Paris, Tokio. I think this is a very appropriate thing and am happy to give the poor people in rush hour a brief thought. We soon got on with it, though.The purpose of the trip was to teach us some aquaticity, which was wonderful. I have learned the spearo duck dive, and am leaving the surface a lot more quietly now, which is well necessary if hunting for anything in Greece. Fish here don’t live above 20m, so Chris and I were taken out to spearfish into the deep, blue water by Fred. The guys showed me how to swim with the gun so I wouldn’t shoot myself in the head or foot, then let me head on down, out of sight.



I tell you, I was not expecting to go looking for groupers as deep as 32m when I came on the boat. I did take a couple of shots, but missed, of course. Might have something to do with squeezing my eyes shut when pulling the trigger. Chris did not fare much better, and he has no excuse, being an experienced hunter, after all, and a man. He did point out that fish in New Zealand live above 15m, but it seemed he had no problem spending stupidly long bottom times down below 25m. In the end, it was up to Fred to show us how it’s done and catch our dinner. Here is a photo of me, stalking. Since we did not find any fish anywhere, I posed for Chris who was out with his camera instead. Just imagine that this is at 32m.



Will could not join in the fishing expeditions, because he was unable to pull the trigger. This is a longish story. Basically, we broke him on the first day of sailing. First, he tried to rescue an escaping rope (or sheet – sailors are weird) and got nasty rope burn all over his fingers. Then, he tried to rescue the escaping anchor chain and dislocated a rib, on the other side, so both arms did not really work anymore. Since I am first aid trained (it is a scuba instructor thing), I felt it was my duty to go in search of some disinfectant. The first aid kit produced nothing but an ancient bottle of Iodine. This they still use in surgery in hospitals, I believe, but usually only after they give you the general anaesthetic. Will asked me to “just pour”, so we went to the back off the boat and got on with it. There was a moment delay, so we all thought it was not the stuff that burns, after all, until we were treated to some pretty good screams seconds later. Chris had produced his camera from somewhere and documented the whole thing in a series of pictures that show an amazing range of grimaces, including Will biting his arm. I felt bad, is all I can say. Anyway, I could post one of these photos here, but have decided that it was a far too private moment, and am going for the following image instead:



Here are Will and I, looking kind of cute together, I think. Will’s wife gets terribly seasick, thus leaving the field open to us to flirt shamelessly with her husband. All my efforts were wasted, though, and this picture was the best I managed. I think I am losing my touch. It is tough on a boat, when a girl does not have important items such as spiky heels to assist her.

The week was just beautiful, I love sailing. It is a wonderful combination with freediving. Everyone learned loads, and I think even Will believes that my no fins technique might not be completely hopeless, anymore. Unfortunately, I will now have to go and practice this awful discipline. Maybe I’ll just go spearfishing instead. My only problem is, I just can’t load the guns, so I will have to find some male buddy to do this for me. Chris and Fred seem to think that this will be very easy.

Right. Want to hand a blond girl a speargun? Anyone?

Guide to worldchampionships

Take a look at this very nice video the guys from Aarhus made about the worlds. It shows the facilities, the divers, the competition. Right at the end, the girl nearly leaping straight out of the pool during the static competition, that is me, having just been told by Giota that I did 6:12...:-)

Record, then party

Yesterday we had the pleasure to sleep in, since the dynamic finals were not until four in the afternoon. Having woken up early anyway, I came across Japanese freediver Hanaka wandering around aimlessly on the way to the supermarket – she was in the B-final with me, and couldn’t sit still anymore, either. To give my head something to focus on other than yet another official top, I went over to the pool to watch the end of the CMAS competition. They have been running their world championships alongside ours, which has been very interesting. I arrived in time to see Stig, who has not trained for two years (information confirmed by fellow Aarhus freedivers), do a 238m dive, followed by the surface protocol in less than five seconds. I wonder what he eats for breakfast. He got disqualified, though, because he forgot to drop the little marker CMAS use to check the distance achieved.

As the B-final was approaching, I was feeling less and less like diving, and more and more like having a party. Danish Maria was in a similar state. We both just wanted to have beer, without the diving. We spent the last half hour psyching each other up: Just two more minutes. Then beer. Have to beat x by at least ten meters. Then beer. Or: beer at two minutes to official top? This passed the time until Johan arrived to coach me, and took care to calm down my nerves just the right amount. As soon as I was swimming, I felt good, and even though the noseclip came off again, I swam 164m, beating my record from the day before by ten meters. Even surfacing to see judge Linda, again, with the piss-off card, didn’t bother me anymore. I was at the party.

There was just one small detail to take care of: coaching my training buddy Elisabeth in the A-final. She just swam and swam, towards the end mostly with her arms. Then she came up totally clean at more than 180m, which was amazing and got her into fourth place over all. The atmosphere during the finals was fantastic, everyone cheering and shouting as the eight divers were heading towards the medals. Now that it is all over, I can honestly say that as much as I did not like freediving in the pool, I have enjoyed these world championships enormously. We had some more suffering to go through at a slightly endless awards ceremony, with flags rising to the ceiling while hymns were being played. Since Natalia won three gold medals, we heard the Russian one three times, and it is loooooong! All very moving, but torture for a bunch of freedivers who had not eaten anything since breakfast. This we need to work on next time. Just throw us the medals, then give us food, then beer. This did fortunately follow eventually, and we spent the rest of the night dancing around in gym hall much in the fashion of a school disco, which was kind of cool. In the end, the security guard kicked us out.

A lack of Raki at the party means that I am feeling fine this morning, and will go off in search of the beach in a second. I heard that the sea is around here, somewhere.

Two new records in one day. What? How? What happened?

It has been a strange day. Linda would be pleased to hear that I am lost for words, which must mean that her “cut down on talking time” program is working, as was kind of proven this morning in static. Johan arrived to coach and spotted me right away sitting on my towel in a far corner of the pool. “You look terrified” were his exact words, which summed up the situation pretty accurately. I guess I was tired of being stressed, so when it was time to hold my breath, I relinquished all responsibility to Johan and simply trusted him to take good care of me. This meant that I was ready to just listen to whatever he said, so I relaxed again at around five minutes instead of fighting the dive. Somehow I heard him say something about six minutes, and he got me up at the perfect time with a pb, a ninth place over all, and a new German record (old one was 6:07) of 6:12.


This used to be the one I thought was unbeatable. All it took were two great coaches! Thank you so much, Jesper and Johan. I am definitely blaming this one you guys.

Done with static, Elisabeth and I went out in search for food, where we ate as much pasta as we could possibly fit in, hoping to get energy for the dynamic qualifying some seven hours later. Elisabeth was up first, and proved that our training had been working by going all out to do very clean dive of more than 170m. She was back in time to help calm down my nerves, and when I pushed off the wall I felt strong and ready for a good performance. I was just swimming along happily when (don’t ask me how) my googles and my noseclip came off at the 100m turn and were dangling around my neck. It took me a second to work out why there was water up my nose and I could not see anything. Then I thought, oh no, I have to come up early, then I thought, no way, I am swimming to the end. The interesting bit was turning at 150m not being able to see the wall, and although I still felt good I decided to be safe and came up with a new German record of 154m.

This has put me into the B-final. I am planning to keep my goggles on and see what that will feel like. Whish me luck!