The first Ride
// Juli 5th, 2012 // No Limit
The morning (4th July) started lazy. I slept long – had some breakfast – then I was watching a movie.
When I arrived at the center Andrea and Marco still had another student for training. When they finished Andrea came by and he told me „We´re gonna play“!
That ment that it was my first training day in the Sled. At around 16:00 we went into the water. We had the sled with us und the robe. While Andrea and Marco prepared the sled I started my warum up with a several dives to 15m – waited there until the first contraction came and then I resurfaced. The longest warmup dive was 3:03 min.
When the sled was ready they gave me a intruduction for the sled. There are two tanks on the sled for inflation the ballon – one main tank and one spare tank. The brake will stop the sled imidiatly. Beside that there is a safety lanyard fixed above the sled.For filming they fixed one of UK GERMANY´s Go Pro Housings on the sled. The whole construction is just amazing. Finaly I prepared myself and when the 2min countdown finished I went into the blue sea.
I had to do the mouthfill in 8m and use only this air without refilling. It was a very nice feeling but the ride was quite short. Then I hit the 40m. I opened the valve of the tank and looked at the ballon how it inflated. Then I made my way back to the surface. At about 15m Andrea touched me. That was the signal for opening the quickrelease of the lanyard. I was free and the sled went without me. The last meters I did myself. It was a amazing first ride.
We kept on diving first to 50m. Then another dive using the brake. On each dive I had to focus on my position during ascent and descent.The first day on the sled is to get used to it. On my last dive for the day my Scubapro Meridian Diving Computer sayed: 61,5m and that dive was for sure sooooo easy.
Back in the center we were watching the on Board Clip to make some troubleshooting. What we found out was, that I could be a bit more streamlined on the sled puting my arms more close to my body. And I have to work on the position of my head cause I was kind of looking up during the ascents.
Can´t wait for the next session.
In the evening I made a call home and had some dinner. I really needed to eat cause I only had breakfast and two eggs during the whole day.