Game, set match. Thank you ref, thank you ballboys...

We came, we saw, we conquered. We snorted saltwater, coughed blood, ate camel, got rope burn, got colds, got better, strained muscles, got flu's, made numerous dashes to the toilet, saw dead dogs, cats, camels and corals, saw live ones too, saw what Harrods chocolates can do to two ladies stuck in the desert, we inhaled, we exhaled, we inhaled more and more and more, got chaffed lips, threw up, rinsed sinues, and threw up again. But not all at the same time.

We dived, dived and dived. And somewhere in the middle we got our National records. Mark got the British National Records for Free Immersion (64m) and Variable Weight (80m), whilst I got the Aussie National Records for Free Immersion (50m), Variable Weight (72m) and No-Limits (80m). It was gut wrenching to watch Anne-Marie get sicker and sicker until she couldn't dive any more, particularly as we were going in the oppposite direction and getting over our illnesses as we went along.


Going from the initial discussion of record setting through to the finished event there were a whole legion of butler monkeys doing our bidding. Without them we would have been stuffed, plain and simple. Hopefully i'll remember them all here, and if not then i'm sure the Edit button still works for when I am reminded what a twat I am a bit later. So anyway, in no particular order here is a bunch of thankyou's...


Anne Marie Kitchen-Wheeler was a great team mate and provided us with support and encouragement, hopefully next time the gods will smile a bit more on her.

Sofus Kreutzmann was in Dahab to do a little training but ended up spendin 95% of his time safetying for us, a huge endeavour given it was his holiday time. He also busied himself with everything else like setting up the training lines to pulling the ridulously heavy sled up from depth. With Sofus's help it allowed us to relax a bit and concentrate on the job at hand. Plus he's a great guy to hang around anyway so i'm glad we were blessed with his company.

Katerina Smirnova, the Ukranian who was on an extended holiday in Egypt graciously took on the job of chief AIDA cameraperson, sitting in the cold wind filming our dives - thanks a lot Kat!

All the local guys that helped out - There were a couple of Mohammed's around that helped us to no end - Mohammed the driver who took us out to the Blue Hole everyday and back, Mohammed in the restaurant that stored our equipment and waited on us hand and foot as well as the other guys in the restaurant that treated us like royalty. Nicer guys are impossible to find!

Sam Kirby - luckily Sam was out in Dahab the same time as we were and made herself more than available to help safety, take photos, pull ropes and pitch in all over the place. And somewhere in the middle she got a bit of depth and started feeling the love again. After seeing Sam teach non-stop for a year and not do any diving herself it was nice to see her with the monofin back on.






Our safety scuba team.... where do you start? Wilfry and Dean - cool guys. Dean in particular was cool because he is a Canadian extreme sport sort of dude that wears a bandanna, does extreme-type activities and says things like "gnarly" all the time. Everytime he opened his mouth it was to stoke our egos so he was a pleasure to hang out with. The guys did some long dives without (much) complaint so a big thanks to the lads.



Matt Kitchen - safety scuba and videographer. A HUGE amount of cred for this guy. As a freediver, AIDA judge, BFA committee member and coach/hubby he knows the sport back to front and gave us tons of advice. As a scuba safety guy he also did some long dives and made sure we stayed safe. As a Videographer he put in a herculian effort to film all our record dives as well as some of our training one. Matt is a stunning video man but it was only afterwards that we saw the rest of his video talent when he presented us with the finished video - high quality footage matched with rockin beats and edited perfectly (i'll post up a link shortly). I can't imagine how much time went into it and all of it off the cuff - we never asked for any of it! Thanks Matt.


Laura Storm - shining star and rock goddess! Laura was instrumental in all of our preparations
- from offering advice on safety setups and various diving configurations to decompression advice, putting the scuba team together, diving tirelessly, keeping our spirits up when we were starting to snap, keeping us hydrated, motivating us to do our best and keeping us in check when we all went a bit silly. And on top of that taking some stunning photos as well, most of the photos i've used on the blog are from her talented hand. Simply brilliant, that chick.


Lotta Ericson and Linda Paganelli - owners of Freedive Dahab and all the equipment we used as well as our judges. I can't imagine how shitty that week would have been without these guys. Not to far away from our target dates we had a few worries with equipment maintenance and prices and for a little bit we were unsure if it was even going to go ahead. However the guys put a lot of work in to make sure everything was ok for our arrival. When we first saw the rig we realised how much work it would have taken to lug it all out there and moor it in place. They were incredibly friendly, supportive, flexible and gave us a safe environment to train in each day. No-one lost their cool and they made everything stress free for us, which was great seeing as we would find just about anything stressful each day! Thanks so much guys.

Mark Harris - my teammate, training buddy, mentor, lifestyle co-ordinator and fashion consultant. Whenever i'm frazzled by anything Mark seems to be able to put the logic back in and things make sense again. Training and competing with Mark has given me a wealth of knowledge and experience and he is one of the most selfless people around. He pretty much single-handedly organised our whole excursion and made sure everything ran to plan. Great Britain is a much better freediving nation because of him! Thanks for everything mate.





Finally, the love of my life, the cheese and kisses, my wife Pen. Being a freedive widow is a pretty hard thing but she manages to do it with style. She also keeps me sane and puts perspective in my life. Love you babe!






Oh and how can I forget my fans...




Right, I think that's about it for now. The task at hand now is to get back into normal life after such a brilliant holiday. Wish me luck....

Game Day - Record Day 2, Sun 9/12/07

I woke up at 7am again and stumbled around getting dressed, determined to be eating by 7:20am. The day before I could still feel brekky settling while I warmed up, not a particularly pleasant feeling even though it was nearly 4 hours after breakfast. At the breakfast buffet the Gods had decided to really piss me off today, no peppers for my omelete and not a banana in Africa. I ended up having half an omelete caked in salt on half a brown piece of toast and a couple of mouthfuls of tinned fruit. Mmm, breakfast of champions....

Most of the previous evening I spent wondering what I should have gone for the following day. Now the following day was here, I still hadn't really made up my mind. The dilemma was as follows: I wanted 3 records. I had 2 already (Free Immersion and Variable Weight) and had the option of extending Free Immersion today, before the No-Limits dive. I had to go for Free Immersion first because of logistical reasons - we would have killed our helpers trying to lug the rope up and down all day. But if I buggered Free Immersion up I could not go for the second dive. So should I go for Free Immersion again? The week was taking it's toll and I was starting to get pretty tired from diving everyday, normally i'd have a rest day for every 2 days of diving. But I was pretty sure I could get to at least 53m, as traditionally my equalisation gets better the more I dive, other things being equal. However No Limits was the main reason I was out there, I could have done Free Immersion back in England if I wanted to. So after brekky I decided that the day would be for No Limits only. I could feel the relief already, even though I still hadn't decided a No Limits depth...

Mark on the other hand had a busy day. He had decided to to the Variable Weight dive first as it was relatively easy for him. The idea was to build the confidence up with the first dive then go in strong for the for the second Free Immersion dive. The previous day's dehydration issues were clearly gone given Mark's constant trips to the loo so I had a feeling it would be a good day.

Sitting in the restaurant I was mulling many thoughts around in my head - I was definitely only doing No Limits, but how deep? I had been as deep as 76m in training, and I needed 78m to go deeper than any other Australian had ever officially gone. Mark was doing 80m for his Variable Weight dive, so then my accountant's logic mixed with my testosterone (a scary mix...) said that if I went first and had a go at 80m, I would bring the sled back for the next dive and there would be no need for hauling the sled + rope up 80m. Plus I probably had an ok chance of doing 80m so bugger it, lets give it a go. Makes sense doesn't it?

We headed out for the last time, did our warm ups for the last time and prepared ourselves. I had a couple of niggling thoughts - this was the first time I had done a deep sled dive without a deep Free Immersion dive first. I didn't know whether that was a good thing or not but it made me wonder. Second thing was that this was the first time I had done a proper No Limits dive. Every other sled dive had been Variable, with the exception of a 30m dive the first day. Things might be a little different and hopefully it wouldn't phase me too much.

After the warm ups I positioned myself on the sled and did some slow breathing. The wind was worse today and there was a reasonable chop on the surface. I gave Linda the 2 minute signal and did my final breathing. I waited for a lull in the waves then inhaled, packed and packed and packed, let go of the brakes and I was away. The first thing I noticed was that I was going faster in the first 20m, due to me not wearing the monofin which caused a lot of water resistance. For the first 30m I concentrated on lots of equalising and making sure my mask was well equalised. Past 30m my equalising slowed down and I enjoyed the scenery as gradually the Arch opened itself to me again. As I got past 50m I started mouthfilling for equalisation and sank even quicker into the darkness. After 60m I concentrated on equalising earlier if I had any chance of making it to 80m. I started getting a bit warm and fuzzy as the narcosis started and when my alarm went off at around 70m I managed to get a mouthful of air and equalise again. Not knowing how deep I was at the time I equalised again and promptly came to a halt with a big bang on the bottom plate. This caught me off guard partly because of the narcosis and partly because I still had a mouthful of air, something I had never had at the bottom of any of my sled dives before. I slowly reached down and started turning the knob on the tank to take me back up. Things seemed really slow, and my skin was tingling all over and I remember being so chilled out that I really didn't want to go back up, but I knew I had to. Eventually the bag started filling and the sled started moving up. I was holding the handlebars, looking up and thinking I was Superman I was that narked.

On the way back up I wanted to jump off the sled half way and make my way slowly back up, to help avoid any decompression issues, plus I didn't want to go all the way on the sled and then get thrown around on the surface with the airbag and sled bouncing around everywhere. So after some time I unclipped my lanyard, and waited until I thought I was about half way. But seeing as how narked I was I mistimed it completely and ended up jumping off at around 20m because I saw my safety diver the second I ditched the sled. I grabbed the line to slow my ascent, looked up to see the sled bubbling like mad and gradually made my way up the last 15m. I surfaced on the wrong side of the airbag and had to lean over it to get to the rope to steady myself. Clearly I was still narked because when I took my mask off I was smiling away to myself as I did my protocol. I waited until the 30 seconds was up and got the ok from the judges and did my girliest gleeful squeal to date. Successful 80m dive!

After we did the business of checking gauges and other bits and pieces I went on the 02 and it was Mark's turn on the sled (contrary to the video which has his Free Immersion dive first... bit of dramatic license there!). He was also doing 80m but doing it Variable Weight. Fortunately
he had an absolutely flawless dive and came up fresh as a daisy. A while after that he was ready for his Free Immersion dive. After he took off it was apparent something was wrong not far into the dive but we weren't sure what and he kept going. A couple of minutes later he surfaced and did his surface protocol and got his record. The problem that had occurred earlier on was that at about 5m down he had knocked his noseclip off, meaning water was flooding into his nose and sinuses. Instead of aborting the dive, he grabbed his nose with one hand and pulled himself down single handedly, something i've never heard anyone doing and one of the ballsiest things i've ever witnessed. Both of us couldn't wipe the grins off our face as we headed back to shore.

As a celebration, Linda and Lotta had arranged for picnic dinner in an oasis in the desert under the stars for us all. We trekked out in 4x4's to the location, a stunning canyon. We went to a spot and watched the sunset, when we returned Linda had lit dozens of candles on the side of a cliff, it looked stunning. We also had a few drinks - when we were at the liquor store we noticed a bottle of champagne-looking stuff that was called AIDA.... we had to have a couple of bottles of that! (for the non freedivers, AIDA is the International Freediving governing body). We ate some brilliant bedouin food including some Camel kofta, we all sang our national anthems (Aussie, British, Danish, Swedish, Italian and Ukranian). We headed back to the hotel later on a bit tipsy, with full bellies and absolutely exhausted.

So that was that! A lazy start to the day and a big big breakfast then we started the long trek back to London.

Little bit more to come....