Team Sharkbait

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Yesterday it was time to go out and do a outdoor freediving session again. Since I’ve been back since Thursday I haven’t been in the water yet. This is also the fault of the ear infection I got on Saturday. I have no idea were it came from, but it hurted like hell.

On Sunday it was so bad I couldn’t hear anything anymore on my left side. So when the problem still maintained I made a doctors appointment on Monday and of course, because I wasn’t an emergency, I could come in on Tuesday. On Tuesday it was already somewhat open again, which meant the dizziness was already much lighter. But the cleaning of the ears together with the ear-drops made everything much better again. So much better that I was ready to go out again on Wednesday. Or so I thought…

Together with Kostas and Sanne it was time to visit Panheel again for some light and easy training. Arrived at the site I decided to try my 2,5 mm competition wetsuit. Unfortunately, after not using it for 2 years, I tore a big hole in the top part. At that point I was so fed up with the delicate material and all the repairing we already did on these suits I decided to kill it completely and ripped it of my body like the Hulk does with his t-shirt. Too bad we didn’t film it… My next suit will be one with a lining in it.

In the water everything felt okay at first. Some simple and fun dives and the underwater playground and blowing some bubbles. Sanne and Kostas were having fun as well. After that we went to the 10 meter buoy and I started with a easy free immersion dive with a static at the bottom. With no gloves, a 2,5 mm bottom and 5 mm top and no weight-belt, I really felt like shit down there. Somehow I managed to do a pretty good static of 1 minute at the bottom and my first dive was 1,5 minutes, which due to circumstances I was pretty happy with. Ears also felt good.

Sanne also made some nice dive, showing of his mastery in the secret art of underwater bubble blowing. He has for sure surpassed his sensei in this one! Always a joy to watch! Kostas also tried to do some dives to 10 meters but was hit again with his equalization problem. We tried all kind of different things but somehow he couldn’t go down further then 5-6 meters. For sure we will find a solution to this in the near future.

Because this session was not to be a deep training session we decided to visit the underwater habitat and watch some fish. Unfortunately after arriving we didn’t see the big ones, but the smaller ones together with the divers who were swimming by without noticing us made it all fun again.

During these shallow dives I noticed my ear was getting in trouble again. Equalizing was getting more difficult and I was somewhat feeling dizzy again. So I decided to get back to the really shallow side of the lake and look at the somewhat smaller fish and life over there.

After 1 hour we left the water, which is somewhat shorter then usual, but it was a nice session nonetheless. The parking lot was suddenly completely filled with divers, so we were out on time again. Because of the ear we’re skipping tomorrows pool session and wait for next weeks sessions so that everything will be going well again. The sun and great water made it a good session again!