This is a post by Jorg Jansen.
Sanne and I just returned from an excellent outdoor freediving session in Panheel. It wasn’t as good of a weather as last week, but still it was good enough to get in again. We started with the first test at 10 meter to feel if everything was okay before we did the rest of the swim to the 23 meter buoy. No problem for both of us, and visibility was still good, around 5-6 meters. Water was a lot colder and I already had some shivers, but they were disappearing as soon as I dived.
Jorg coming up
After we arrived at the deep line, Sanne started with the first dive. He aborted the dive halfway because he didn’t feel really relaxed, but from there on he was back in his freediving modus. Doing some great dives to the bottom, and relaxing at 23 meters before coming back to the surface. It always looks so easy for him. He has so much more depth left, but no we have to find a deep and light place to dive in. Preferably not more then 30 minutes from home. ;)
My dives also went okay. I did 3 free immersion dives to 23 meters. The first dive I stayed at the bottom for around 5 counts, the second for 10 and the last for 15 counts. So I can say that I’m pretty comfortable these days again on that depth. That’s a good thing! So lets continue building from here on as a basis.
Sanne preparing before the dive
Next it was time for some FRC dives. We decided to do 2 FRC dives each. Sanne was first and managed to do a good 10 meters. Afterwards it was time for me again and I managed to 15 meters. I didn’t expect to be so deep, so the way back up was longer then expected. Because FRC dives take their toll on the body pretty fast if you’re not used to them, I decided to do the next one until I really had to start working with equalizing. I still managed to do a very easy 13 meters that felt completely relaxed all the way down and up. Sanne managed to better his first performance by going to 12 meters. Good and hard work!
As we had done enough depth for that day, it was now time to bring the fins to shore and do some constant no fins dives at the 10 meter line. Last time I did these was around 2003, but it was great fun to be doing them again. You really have find a stroke and equalize rhythm to make it all work. Of course the 10 meters was pretty easy, but it was just a first try to ensure we would do it next time at the deeper line. We ended the session at the underwater play-garden, blowing some bubble rings and fooling around. All in all a great training again. Really feeling in my body that we trained this time. So that’s a good thing.
