A fantastic day for the Canadian women, all white cards in constant no fins. Personally I had a little chip on my shoulder from my yellow card on the last attempt, so today I was back for retribution. I was not happy about having to redo CNF, since I have not been training it and I personally find this discipline hard if I do not train it.

Last night the hotel became alive with a crash, bang and boom of men fighting in the lobby to be followed by an encore of drunken guitar playing until 5am. Lucky for me I was wearing ear plugs and did not hear a thing, not so for all divers.

Today the diving was deepest to shallowest, and the conditions were perfect this morning, but by the end of the competition there was a current, wind and waves. Maybe it was conditions or lack of sleep, but today many divers did not start, or surfaced to see yellow and red cards.

I was the first to the line of my female team mates. My warm up did not go go as I would have liked, my mask flooded on my first warm up and I was surprised because the thermocline that was at 15M two days ago, jumped up to 9M. I did 3 short warm ups instead of two longer ones and I had only 10 minutes to relax before my official top.

I have had many problems with equalization during the competition, so I decided to try something different today. I swam down until 26M then just relaxed to equalize. When things got uncomfortable in my ear I did a few strokes grabbed a tag and returned to the surface. Philippe my coach said I looked very sloppy on my last two strokes, which I think was because of the current. I made sure to surface before I grabbed the line, because I certainly did not want another yellow card. I had a small pause after I removed my facial equipment, but a shout from Philippe reminded me to get on with it and finish my surface protocol.

Soon after my dive I saw Kattie getting into the water and looking very stressed. She had kindly asked the loud party crew to be quiet around 2:30am, but was told to go away. She didn't get much sleep and was feeling nervous about her 30M dive. This was 7M deeper then her personal best, but she had done 23M in 4 degree water with a 5mm suit so we convinced her to announce 30M.

Once Kattie was at the official line she had relaxed and had a look of determination in her eyes. She dove down and because of current it took her many strokes to get to 20M, she made it to 30M then surfaced away from the dive line. She was wearing fluid goggles which makes your vision doubled on the surface and for a moment I was afraid that she would not find the line. Luckily she did, finishing her surface protocol with a huge smile.

Nathalie was up next with a 20M dive. She did a dry warm up and entered the water a few minutes before her dive in her new, and very difficult to don, fast skin. She had a easy first 10M, then a tumble turn for equalization, then a few more meters and another tumble turn, at this point she was 3M from the plate. She went and grabbed her tag, not letting go of it until she was back in her room. Loud cheers on the surface when she saw her first white card of the competition.

Tomorrow we will all put on our fins except William who will attempt CNF 87M.

This is my second visit to Greece and I am happy to report on my experience for all of those who were unable to make it to this wonderful event.
First off our hotel is situated right on the sea and all of the room have balconies with an amazing view of the sea. The weather is gorgeous and all of the competitors are sporting the classic freediving jester smile.
The first two days of competition the sea blessed us with perfectly flat conditions, plus the water has even warmed up to 24 degrees. Lucky for me since yesterday I was diving in my 1.5mm suit and fortunately I did not cold before my official top. It has been an exciting competition with many white cards, personal bests and national records.
The best part of this competition is the collection of divers who have come together for this event. Everyone gets along and laughter is in the air. There is plenty of support and encouragement, tips and suggestions for all of the competitors. The best piece of advise I have personally received while being here is a tip regarding repairing my wetsuit. I have successfully repaired 2 badly damaged suit bottoms. Unfortunately since it is a boat based competition there have been a few ripped suits, but so far none beyond repair.
The week of training ran smoothly with divers in the water from 10am to 150 every day, our safety divers were in the water a lot longer making sure everything was perfectly set up for us. Stavros runs a tight ship; he also has one of the fastest sleds in the freediving world. The sled is the rollercoaster of freediving and there is no better place to jump on the sled then Greece, under the care of Stavros and his team.
My fellow Canadians have been doing really well, yesterday William Winram set a new continental record, 97M FIM. Philippe and I have been announcing the same dives without knowing, but lucky for him he didn’t make the mistake I did yesterday, so he doesn’t need to do another CNF dive in the competition, regardless I have a suspicion that we will be seeing something much deeper coming from him soon.
I have been so impressed with my fellow teammates. Nathalie has been training daily, struggling with her sinuses but thankfully yesterday she made some progress so her dives should go well for the rest of the competition. Kattie has been the Rockstar of our group, setting new personal bests on a daily basis. She is so relaxed when I watch her dive, I am sure when she gets a chance to spend some time near the ocean we will be seeing big numbers from her.
One of my personal favorites about Greece is the wonderful food. Mouthwatering feta, olives, taziki and my personal favorite baklava! The night of the opening ceremonies we discovered a delicious gelato shop with killer baklava. Unfortunately I am taking a temporary break until I do a better CNF dive.
Another exceptional thing about this competition is it is sponsored by the city of Kalamata. The city has been providing transportation and entrance fees to the many beautiful places in Greece. Last week we toured ancient Olympia and today the ancient city of Messene. A nice excursion on our rest day, but it was very hot 36 degrees. I am excited to get back to hotel and go for a swim.
I want to send a special thanks to all of the people back home and all over the world who couldn’t be here, that have been cheering us on with love and support.

Currently I am back in Canada. Since I left Egypt I have been going non stop.

My time in Los Angeles, was fantastic. I got to go snow shoeing in the Sequia national park, saw all of the people I wanted to see and I was able to hit many yoga classes, just what I needed! My days were starting at 6am and ending at 10pm. Busy as a bee, but I had a great time.

Since I have been back in Canada, I have also been busy. Everyday I am going through my personal belongings and selling most of it. A strange place to be in, strange feelings. I wish I was not so attached to this stuff when I was younger and if I only knew then what I know now...

Watching it go, the space clears up and my life becomes a little lighter. With the amount that I travel, I have found that there are very few things that I actually need. So far I have made a little bit of money, but nothing compared to what I paid for the stuff. I can't in my mind justify storing things that I might need later.

With every time I move the large items, something inevitably gets damaged, if it is not the furniture itself then it is the sore bodies evident of hard work. I don't want to carry anything heavy for a long time. Plus if I do decide at some point to get my own place again, will I likely need many of the things that I am practically giving away? Yes, of course, but I don't know when that day will come again and I certainly my taste has changed.

My whole perception on value is different now. Truthfully everyday we all change a little bit, I can easily see how I am different today from how I was last year and especially five years ago. It makes me a little sad to see this stuff go, but I know that I am making the right choice.

In this process I was going some boxes that have been sitting in my parents basement for years. Last night I was reading some of my RAD ballet examination adjudication sheets. It made me really miss dancing. I think I always miss dance a little, it was my first passion and got me past being a teenager! My dance teacher told me that the RAD no longer gives written adjudications, too bad, really it warmed my heart when I found them and I got very nostalgic reading the beautiful words.

I have a closet to organize now, I'm not sure when I will write again, but first I will briefly touch on freediving;

Currently I am waiting to see what is happening with Okinawa, more information form the organizer and from my Aida national would be nice. I have to book my airplane tickets by the end of this week and depending on what information comes my way, it will determine if Okinawa will be on my itinerary.

While I am in Canada, I am low on training partners so my plan is to get excited and work dry static. So far, so good, I am not hating it so that is good. I will probably do some recreational ocean diving, however I am afraid that I may turn into an ice cube if I do. If and when I do I will write about it, since I am definitely a warm water baby.

Wishing you all happiness.

A day out of the water for me. I kept blowing blood out of my nose last night and still this morning. I was packing up my bag to go to the blue, including in it my suit and weights hoping somewhere in the back of my mind that I could do just one dive today. I walked over to the sink and blow blood out of my nose one more time and I knew that the temptation of the blue hole was too much for me, so I stayed home and held my breath instead.

Has anyone ever given themselves hiccups from breath holds? I got a major case of them today so I did some research. I found out that hiccups are caused by an irritation to the diaphragm. This can be cause by eating too much or too quickly, getting scared or holding your breath.

" When the diaphragm is irritated, it pulls down in a jerky way, which makes you suck air into your throat suddenly. When the air rushing in hits your voice box, you're left with a big hiccup.'

I found hundreds of solutions to this, but what worked for me was when I shoveled a nice scoop of porridge into my mouth.

Maybe thinking about the 3rd Mediterranean World Cup might have also cured my hiccups. I confirmed yesterday and send in my deposit. Next I will book my plane tickets. I am so excited about going. Check out the promotional video in the link below.

I have to say that it is never a good dive when I see blood, it means that I have hurt myself, and this year my goal was to dive without blood. I will be descriptive about body fluids in this blog, so consider this your warning if that makes you uncomfortable, stop reading.

Blood is one substance that a freediver does not want to see, but like many others before me, what do you you do when you spit blood, for whatever reason, and there is a competition approaching or you only have one week to train in your tropical destination? Last year I would take a day or two off then I was back to it, usually seeing blood again soon.

There are no medical studies that I am aware of about the long term effects of lung, throat or sinus squeeze. Usually after a bad squeeze I would go to the doctor and get checked out, always to find the same result, no problems. That is reassuring, but I know a squeeze is not good.

This year my focus has been to dive without blood. I am less concerned with the depths I am reaching and more focused on being relaxed and comfortable during my dive. The absence of this is the reason I believe that I squeeze myself and ultimately spit blood.

So far my time in the water this trip in Egypt has been relatively useless. My last couple days I have not been past 20M, and even 20 was difficult to get to. I think I was equalizing ever .25M. Today I decided to skip the blue hole, do some breath holds in the morning and then go to light house in the afternoon and play with my equalization on the 10M line.

My morning went great, after about 5 warm up holds, I was feeling much more comfortable with static again. I have not trained static with April 2009 so lately when I have tried to hold my breath I could not break 3 mins, 3:15 on a good day. This is a pretty sad number, especially when I have rock star Canadian women like Julie Bisaillon repeatedly doing 6:53.

I know my static is terrible, it really always has been, but I think if I train it, hard for 1 month then I will be back to an acceptable number again, closer to 5 mins, however I would like to get to 6 mins, that is my goal. Anyway today I did a 4 minute hold and it was much easier then I anticipated. I was surprised when I looked at my stop watch and it was already 3:30. I love those days. I was doing dry statics on my bed, anyway I think my breakthrough came because I changed my breathing and it made my contractions come much later.

It's 5pm and I am finally in my suit ready to go into the water. I head out and start doing pull downs. I start with inhales, then I do a few FRC's. After my 7th pull down I blow my nose and I am amazed my snot was bright orange. Lol I am thinking to myself, WTF, why is my snot this color, clear, yellow, green, these colors I have seem before, but orange, weird. I continue with a few more pull downs and then I decide to do a few CNF to 10M. My plan is to try out my newly repaired 1.5mm suit tomorrow and see how I am doing with this discipline since the Bahamas.

After a few dives I return to the surface feeling good, blow my nose and what do I see? Blood.... Ok diving is now over, back to the shore for some shame, how did I possibly squeeze myself with 10M. Well my sinus have been bugging me this whole trip and I have been trying, pushing them a little to do my will. But as demonstrated in a not so nice way, my will doesn't work.

I was asking Alexey about my orange snot and how unusual it was and he said no it has happened to you before, remember when you spit orange stuff, that is old blood. That makes sense old blood, from other dive attempts. However for the record this was the first time it was from my sinuses.

My mood was a little sour for a bit. I rinsed my sinuses and gave myself a loving massage, then I was off to dinner for some steak, very good recovery food and back home for a call to one of my best friends. Brandon and I talked until I felt better, then a very nice surprise after and I was set. A perfect day, filled with ups and downs.