More pictures from BBH

Fredrik, our photographer turned freediver, has published some more pictures of the last days of diving.

More records for Norway

Today was a good day for the freediving in Norway.

On her second dive, Elisabeth went down to -40 meter without her fin. That is 15 meters deeper then her previous record. The dive took over 2 minutes again as she is swimming with her turtle style. But according to Elisabeth it felt easier then her -35m training dive two days ago. This was also Elisabeths first competition dive with only a noseclip and no mask.



Steinar Schjager set a new record for the Norwegian men in the same discipline by diving down to -47m, putting on 5m on his record.

Other inofficial results: Ingela -40m CWT, Christian Ernest -57m CNF (NR), Klara -56m, Ilka -40m FIM, Ulli -55m CWT, Bjarte -67m CWT.

New Norwegian record: CWT -65m!

I just got the news and want to share it with you.

Today at 9:21 am CET, Elisabeth dove down to 65 meters and returned the tag to the judges at the Buzzy Blue Hole competition. Her dive time was 2:40 min. She says that her legs where getting quite tired so she had to slow down but all went well.

I am so happy!

Elisabeth will rest now and attempt another national record in the afternoon. She will go for -40m in CNF. Her next TOP is 13:21 pm CET.

A photographer turned freediver

Fredrik Naumann is a Norwegian photographer who is following Elisabeth, shooting her in different locations and editing articles for the Norwegian press.

When I met Fredrik for the first time last year at the Aarhus Triple Challenge 2008, I remember he was overly anxious about his scuba tanks. I must admit, I was messing around with them using 'em for getting the pool side BBQ started...

In any case, these days are gone. At the OIC, Fredrik must have gotten so fed-up with hurling his dive gear around that he decided to quit the crap. He enlisted for a freediving course and went to Bergen with the boys from Oslo freediving club to get started on depth.

Right now he is down in Dahab at the Bizzy Blue Hole shooting in apnea, for the first time in his life. The above picture is just a little teaser, I think. He promised me a picture for the Apnea Photo Award. Let’s see what he is coming up with.

It is not often that a journalist is taking part in what we do. Usually they keep their distance which might be good in one way as their view is uncorrupted. On the other hand they sure won’t understand the nature of what we do and usually make mistakes or worse use the old fear of drowning to shed a dark light on our sport.

I am very curious how Fredrik will develop. Maybe he will even compete at some point. I wonder what impact that will have on his work.

Training at the BBH

While Elisabeth is down at the Bizzy Blue Hole, I am sitting here in my flat hunting for a job.

I must say, it is quite challenging and takes a lot of concentration to not think of them in Dahab. Especially when the go diving with sharks.



But while Elisabeth is diving deeper and deeper (doing her PB of last year's BBH today, 61m) I am very happy that people like Daan are looking after her.

Announcing the Apnea Photo Award 2009

When I saw the remarkable pictures of the Vertical Blue it struck me that there is no dedicated Photo Award for apnea pictures.

So, let’s change that. It is just an idea but let’s see where it is going.

Rules:

1. The photo's theme/motive must represent apnea/free diving
2. The photo must be taken in the calendar year 2009
3. The photo should be taken in apnea
4. Any photographer can participate with a maximum number of 5 photos
5. Anybody can nominate photos

Nominations:

Here is my first nomination


Photographer: Fred Buyle
Location: Dean Blue Hole, Bahamas
Date: 04.04.2009
Name: drinking
Depth: -18m

If you have a nomination, please leave a comment or send me a message.

Determining the winner:

With awards you basically have two ways of finding the winner. A: a jury composed of "experts", B: a public vote. I want to know your opinion on it. We have to find a measurement before the year is past. Oh, and of course there is C: a combination of both A and B.

Video of the Berlin Masters Cup

Lars has just published a video of our Open Masters Cup here in Berlin.



Maybe we should do more of this kind of filming so we can show the world what a wonderfull athmosphere we have at the competitions.