14J

On Sunday 31st May 2009, I competed in the 2nd Camberwell Breath Hold Competition. This is a national freediving competition organised by Liv Philip that takes place in Camberwell, London each year. Last year I managed to miss the competition as I got confused between Saturday and Sunday!!!

Anyway, this year was a huge success for me achieving a personal best in Static of 4min 10secs and enjoying an easy 107m dynamic no fins swim that resulted in me coming 1st in that event and 2nd overall.

Huge thanks to everyone concerned.

On Saturday, 30th May 2009 I set a new British Record of 202m in the Freediving event Dynamic Apnea With Fins. This beat my previous record of 186m set in July 2008. Would just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped and made it possible.

During training tonight in New Malden I completed a 180m dynamic with my new fin (complete with fin retainers to prevent a repeat of last night). It was relatively easy and looking forward to knocking in some distances over 200m shortly.

Alas, Sarah is off-sick with flu and so wasn't at training.

During training tonight at Tooting Leisure Centre my fin fell off during a turn, 100m into a dynamic! Back to the drawing board...

Charlotte is too young to try freediving so, as part of her birthday present, we decided to book her on a course to try Scuba with the New Dawn Dive Centre. As they didn't have many pupils Sarah and I decided we would also give it a go. We all spent around an hour in/under the water and had a great time. The New Dawn Dive Centre were absolutely great.  

We had a fantastic freediving session tonight at New Malden with NoTanx. I got a chance to try out my new suit and fin with a pleasant 152m swim - the suit and fin feel amazing although there is definately going to be a need to do some work on turns as the new fin is much heavier than the old one.

Sarah also had a fantastic session, not only completing all the tasks but finishing the session with a 50m dynamic - her first!

14J is Sarah and Alan Barber's website for keeping in touch with family and friends. Welcome.