Freediving

We wake up nervous and have a light breakfast as instructed ... no coffee as it speeds up your heart rate! And we head off to our class. There is theory and breathing exercises first then we go out in the water. There are eight people in total, six boys and two girls. We watch some cool and scary videos and Shane talks us through some theory about your lungs, how you breathe, oxygen and carbon dioxide etc. We go through different methods of getting down like duck diving and using the rope and how to equalise. Then we begin the breathing which involves restricted inhalation and exhalation cycles using your lips and tongue to restrict the airflow, breathing into our stomachs first and then chests and finally a big breath in and a breath hold, followed by recovery breaths. Only six can go out at a time with two instructors so we are asked if we mind waiting till the afternoon - we say that's fine and we go and get something light to eat while we wait getting more and more nervous, Fred in particular.

At 1.30pm we come back and the other group arrive shortly afterwards. They all look completely shell shocked with not a smile in sight ... they say it's really difficult. Fred is now slightly terrified. We don wetsuits, weightbelts, fins, goggles and snorkels and off we go. Out of the boat we all hold onto a big buoy which has a large weight attached to a 12m rope. That's the furthest we'll attempt today, the visibility isn't great though so we can't see the end. We start by practicing duck diving just to a metre or so which is hard. We then start to go down head first holding onto the rope and see how we go. We both have problems equalizing, as did the last group so we change again and go feet first down the rope. The equalizing is much easier but it's such a strange sensation to be holding your breath and going underwater like that - you really feel the pressure increase as you descend so quickly. By the end of the afternoon Andy has got to about 10m or so, Fred nowhere close but we both feel we've made a bit of progress. This is obviously not a pic of either of us ... It's a pic of a pic they had in the office ... nothing so glamorous occurred as we went down the rope.

We're tired and not entirely sure we're looking forward to tomorrow. Andy has blocked ears from his cold and being under the water so much so is also worried about that. We do our homework which is timing ourselves doing 10 cycles of the breathing technique then try not to think about it.