Although the nearest (app. 10 hour drive) but still the most complicated place for competition. Croatian island Rab and actually whole Croatia has from the freediver’s point of view one crucial problem: having to sail the boat – sometimes quite far away from the coast – for places with the suitable depths.
A strong team arrived from the Czech republic – around 20 people altogether. Of course, not all of them competitioners. We’d had been informed beforehand that the training boat would be expensive – finding out at the place it was true. For approximately 2 hour sail on Zodiac the price was 15 euro a person. In the end we managed to get a different boat for reasonable price however far more smaller and slower. And we set off to look for the depths.
Four days were planned for the training and I hoped we’d find appropriate depths to train for 75 m CWT at least several times before the competition. But we didn’t. At least we experienced some surprises and adventures while being on the boat. First, the engine broke down on the sea and we were rocking on the waves for 40 minutes. The next day we unwillingly ended up on the cliffs and waited 3 hours for somebody to pick us up. Maximal training dives reached 65 m CWT but went easily. Mouthfill worked excellently, relaxation was perfect – everything went as it should have. For registration I conservatively wrote 79m, one meter more than my PB.
In my point of view, the competition lacked proper organization and from time to time was close to chaos. First day, delay of all starting times was 30 minutes. In the afternoon, even the corrected schedule didn’t work so the jury was deciding the turn of the competitioners. Second day was my competition day. Transport of the boats was 40 minutes late. When I got to the place I hardly managed to get changed and get to the water for the warm-up. And fun continued. My official top was put off three times. Twice in 10 minutes forward and the other time three minutes back – this definitely didn’t make me calm. In the end I exemplarily spoiled the dive myself.
At the competition rope I breathed out sitting on the foam roll and I will never do it again. Although at the warm-ups I had tried the dive with the foam roll twice and it’d worked perfectly, at the competition dive the roll got stuck in between the foot pockets of the monofin and I had pulled it all the way down. And I can assure you diving with it is impossible. By the time me and my coach managed to loosen it, I had lost the will to carry on with the diving. Finally, I went down but concentration was gone, mouthfill was done late, so I had to turn back in 60 meters and got such a penalization that I ended up second from the bottom. Well, I was taught a lesson and I will remember this one.
Next try for the qualification and at the same time the last is the Triple Depth. See you in Dahab in September.
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