End of the (long)LINE!

This has been one heck of a week, I always knew Lesley was efficient, but I actually had no idea until I started working so closely with her on a project, the woman is a FORCE!
I have had to cancel three training sessions this week as there is simply too much to do before I leave on Tuesday next week. No worries though, I am enjoying the break, Maik my swim coach is a little concerned and has told me to switch off, which I will do soon. Difficult thing to do though since this whole project is about so much more than any dive I have ever been involved in. To make a campaign run takes so much more than I would ever have imagined, I have a huge new found respect for all serious campaigners.
In between that I am running around Cape Town collecting the bits and pieces that I still need to take with to Durban. In the pic on top I am busy selecting a rope, it is serious business buying the right rope, it must be highly visible, strong, low stretch, good grip, low friction (yes, try work that one out!), UV resistant to last.
This evening I will get my counter-ballast back, it has been sent in for galvanizing and powder coating, I never even knew you could powder coat after galvanizing! Lesley has been working around the clock with so many things and it is one deadline after another, I don't know how she found the time to still do the artwork for my van which I will be taking on the road trip to the schools along the coast as I travel north to Durban. Charmaine is working on the arrangements with the schools we will be visiting and Terry is sorting out all the details and logistics for the educational and presentation aspect of the trip.
Below is a profile of my very last dive in Blue Rock which I did this past Sunday. I am really testing it out myself so that I have it all worked out for when I get to Durban.

 Blue Rock is a freshwater lake, so the actual depth here is a few metres more than indicated on the gauge, and we are limited to 46 or 47m (depending on where you land  on the bottom), so I either do partial exhale dives here or like this dive, spend some time on the bottom. This is a dive I have been doing for years, I am not sure how many times I have done it in the past 7 years since Blue Rock came onto my radar, but I love it!

Campaign Launch - Deep Freedive for Sharks

It started towards the end of last winter, I had just returned from another disappointing trip to Egypt, I was disillusioned and not really overexcited about deep diving.

I had just started dating Lesley Rochat, executive director of AfriOceans Conservation Alliance and we went to dive with the sevengill cowsharks in False Bay. We started to discuss the sharks and Lesley showed me her documentary Sharks in Deep Trouble.

While I was obviously sympathetic to her and the shark's problems, I was not really in any hurry to do anything about it. I had been way too wrapped up in myself for so long that I was not really able to consider anything outside of myself.

I guess that is where Lesley went to work on me. I also had long discussions with my father about the shark problem. Slowly as the months passed,  I began to realise that it would not be possible for me to simply walk away anymore.

Eventually, on Saturday the 19^th November the day we buried my father, I realised that this fight had chosen me.

So now I wanted to wreak havoc, I wanted to take out all my frustration on the foreign fishing vessels that are annihilating the sharks out in our national waters. Lesley was at hand again, she pointed out that while all my freediving competition had been utterly pointless over the years, I now had an opportunity to use it for something greater than myself.

By the end of December I had decided what I wanted to do and presented her with my plan, she liked it and we started to build the campaign on 31 December.

It took a lot of reflection, introspection and prayer. God-willing, I now pray that we are successful.

To go to the new campaign website click on the link  "Deep Freedive for Sharks"  on right hand side of this page, under "favorite links"

(blue) - ROCKING!

I had a double session at Blue Rock yesterday, first I dived with my students from Maties course. As per usual, I learnt more from teaching than from my own diving, and especially in light of the fact that I am leaving on my Freediving mission for this year very soon, the lessons and insights came as a timely reminder for my own safety awareness and protocols. Then once I had done with my course duties I stayed in the water and worked on my own training. First I did some partials and was pleased to see that what I had done two weeks ago prior to my
cold-related rest was still there and that I had retained what I learnt, it had been no fluke. Then I did a dive with Roelof, his first to 30m, it was good to do some vertical work with him, we have been restricted to the pool since he arrived. Roelof will be my surface assistant through the next six weeks and it was good for him to get some quality work in with me so that we can develop an in-water understanding. This will be crucial in the location that we will be diving. After that I did a long hang at the bottom of blue rock, it was very cold and very dark, I nearly aborted before breathing up due to the cold, the water temperature in Blue Rock has dropped early this year and I was already shivering, but I decided that I was still strong enough and I was eager to get a confidence booster in after my two week rest.

I am going to see if I can find a way to load the profiles of my D4 onto this blog so I can share my experiences on the forthcoming campaign with followers of this blog and the campaign. The main thing after the dive yestersday was to make sure I warmed up properly and that I cleaned and dried out my ears well, the water at the bottom of the lake can be a bit hectic at this time of year, and one of my sponsors Craig from Q20 has been battling an ear infection this past week after diving there with me two weeks ago. If you let the water lie in your ears for a while, it comes back to bite you hard.

I am putting some final preps in place before I leave on my trip, and things are hectic here getting ready to launch the campaign. That website needs completion! I also got two new sponsors today. And some great new additions to my safety team, locals from Durban, very good divers, one that has also gone through my training, so I am feeling a lot more comfortable having him on my boat!

Condolences

It came as a huge shock to me that the young man killed by a great white shark at Kogelbaai yesterday was the nephew of a great freediving friend of mine. I offer my deepest condolences to him and his whole family.

As my girlfriend Lesley Rochat works daily on all shark related issues I have been very close to the news as the story unfolded, it was with great shock then that I received an email from a close friend expecting our usual banter only to find that the victim was his nephew.

Further to that it has been very interesting, annoying and enlightening for me to observe a lot of very outspoken characters on the shark issues scurrying for their holes in the light of what has happened.

All of this has further strengthened my resolve for the campaign Lesley and I are about to launch!

Due to the change in weather in Cape Town over the past two weeks I have reduced pool training. Kind of wrapping myself up and just trying to leave the Cape in one piece without a bug! I will be leaving Cape Town on 2 May, heading north.

Counter-ballast - check!

Jenny has been working hard at my counter ballast, because I will be diving in a very strong standing current, with strong wind movement on boats on the surface, it is essential that the whole diving rig must not be attached to the boat. If it is attached the line will be horizontal. When the surface rig is free floating and you have a heavy enough weight on the bottom and a down line that is not too thick, even though the current is pumping down the east coast of Africa, the effects of the current can be minimized significantly. The key is that everything is moving along in the column at the same speed. So here Jenny has been hard at work in her workshop creating the rig for me. I drew it out for her and she has done a wonderful job! Thanks Jenny!

Fasten your sea-tbelts!

It has been nearly a year since I last blogged here...Now I am at home in Stanford making preparations with the latest member of my team, Roelof du Plooy, here he is busy painting the new shelves in the campaign van. With all the extra equipment I am travelling with these days it has become really important to get organized. Training has been going very well, although I have taken a few days off as I have been feeling the need for rest. Fortunately for me it coincided with Maik's (my coach) holiday! As I have already mentioned on facebook a few times in the past two weeks, together with my partners we are preparing to launch an exciting and important new campaign, I have just seen the new website and am very excited to let it fly!