50m diver!

Last night we went to Chez Pierre's for dinner. We arrived at about 7:30pm, ordered at 8:30, started eating after 9 and got our mains about 9:45pm. It was a really cute restaurant though and the food was really good. It was right on it's own stunning beach front. I got my fill of red meat and veges that always makes for good diving the next day.

I woke up stiff again, the same as yesterday. I stretched and seemed to get rid of it a little pain. I figure it's all mind over matter once you're down there anyway so you can't let these niggly little things get to you... I went over the dive in my head several times to ensure that I wouldn't lose focus or panic on the ascent.

The dive itself was pretty painful. The contractions started early again (probably about 20m) due to my no warm up and no forced ventilation prior to the dive. I had some negative thoughts during freefall, but luckily it felt quite fast so I soon saw the 5m marker, then reached out for the stripes indicating the last 1.5m. I reached out, grabbed the tag and stuck it to my lanyard belt, then gave a huge tug on the line to commence my upward momentum before starting the big breaststroke swim back to the surface. I was telling myself to focus and relax the whole way. IIt was one of the frst dives I've had where I can remember the massive contractions I was experiencing on the ascent. Normally I just block them from my mind and keep swimming, so they must have been huge. Eventually I saw Nat, my deep safety and I did a few more strokes and reminded myself to both glide up towards the surface for the final ten meters and remember to do my hook breath on the surface. I breathed, and completed my surface protocol for the judges to set my 5th national record of the competition and put myself into the top 5 in the world for women's constant weight without fins! It was a really hard dive and I panted for a long time after, however, I do feel that given more time to train at dept I would have a lot more to give. Not too bad though for having done less than 20 deep dives without fins and more than half done here over the last three weeks.

Tomorrow is my last day :( I'm going to have a go at going quite deep with Kerian's monofin, since I haven't had any issues with my equalisation yet and Keian's mono is so much nicer than mine I've nominated 65m so will see what happens. I've only done three dives past 50m ever. Could be interesting...