The last chance for national records

13.08.2008

Today is the last day when we can still attempt official national records, but the weather has no mercy. Yesterday the wind was so strong that we had no access to deep water. In the evening the wind had died out completely, but during the night we could hear it getting stronger again. The wind had just turned around by 180 degrees. As Jyri already wrote, yesterday we escaped the wind to the north side of the island and did our dives at a popular SCUBA-diving spot where the main attraction is a set of “caves” that are very easy for divers. All these caves are short, open at both ends, and the exits are always visible almost as soon as you enter at one end. There were six freedivers in our group, and every time a diver entered a cave there were safety divers ready at both ends of the cave. In Finland freediving in even the easiest caves would be lunacy, but in these conditions it can be done safely with an experienced group. A beautiful place and amazing dives!

Diving in the caves of the north coast of Menorca 

Afterwards I did not feel quite as good, as the weather was very very hot (for a Finn) and it took us some hours to find a place for lunch after the dives. After lunch I was totally exhausted from the heat.

In the morning I felt better, and as the wind blew from the north, Francois, Dave, Raphael, Fabio, Ernesto and I went diving at the wreck of the Ocean Diver again (read more here). Jyri decided to stay in bed and rest, as he planned to do some spearfishing with Patrick in the afternoon.

Some readers have asked us how official national records can be set. In Finland there are two ways to do this:
1) A record at a freediving competition.
1) An official record attempt. The record attempt must be announced to AIDA Finland at least a month before the attempt. Records can be attempted in one discipline for a maximum of two weeks, and no attempts can be done in the same discipline for the next two weeks. There must be at least two Finnish AIDA judges or at least one non-Finnish AIDA judge following the dive. In depth disciplines there must be a video camera both at the surface and at the bottom, and the video material from both cameras must be submitted to a Finnish judge. AIDA Finland makes the final decision on accepting the record attempt. The diver attempting the record must sign an anti-doping agreement with the Finnish Diver’s Federation, and he or she can be tested at any time for doping.

We can no longer do official record attempts tomorrow, and most likely the wind will be too strong for deep dives anyway. The final diving results of our project and the new Finnish national records are listed below (see freediving depth discipline descriptions):

-Free Immersion 61 m / Eero Soralahti (Previous national record 60 m /Antero Joki)
 -No Limits 66 m / Eero Soralahti (no previous official result, deepest known dive 65 m / Timo Kinnunen)
-Variable Weight 70 m / Jussi Lehtonen (no previous official result, deepest known dive 64 m / Timo Kinnunen)
-Constant Weight 97 m / Jussi Lehtonen (previous national record 86 m / Timo Kinnunen)
-Constant Weight Without Fins 61 m / Jyri Vehmaskoski (Previous national record 60 m / Topi Lintukangas)

We will fly back to Finland with Jyri on Friday. There will still be more entries in the diary even though official record attempts can no longer be done.
Donations are still accepted, so if you are reading this and have not done so yet, now is a good time to donate in benefit of leukaemia and Multiple Sclerosis patients!

 -Jussi