After many training days and some rest, today was finally the first official attempt of Martin Stepanek’s Freediving World Record Challenge 2011. All the crew seemed very calm and confident and “The A team” was ready even though the day started really early for most of us. Probably some nerves and the excitement of an important day that got everyone out of bed early 
Unfortunately, strong winds picked up in the morning creating lots of white caps and waves. Not really the most relaxing thing to prepare for a record breaking constant weight freedive. Nevertheless our “Master of Ceremony”, David, didn’t seem preoccupied because his close friend Martin is used to dive in difficult conditions. So, after what seemed like an endless time waiting, it was finally the time to dress up and get ready for the upcoming official top. All the safety team, camera crew and the AIDA judges where ready and set for the attempt. Martin looked relaxed and was even joking around with his team.
After the warm-up (2 looong hangs at depth and 2 negative dives) the countdown finally began. Just before 4pm Martin duck-dived into the blue for a dive that was going to last a little less than 4 minutes. Needless to say, everyone on the surface was holding their breaths too… But then suddenly after 2 minutes and a bit, we saw Martin swimming up. What happened? The safety freedivers went to meet him and he immediately signaled an equalization problem.
He more or less did his surface protocol, knowing it was useless, and explained that after dropping passed 90m his ear got stuck. We could read the disappointment on his face, but more important we could see that he didn’t feel very well. In fact he was suffering from a very strong vertigo probably induced by the equalization problem. After further examination by the events doctor everything seemed to settle down and Martin started feeling better after some rest ashore.
There are still enough days for other attempts, so for now rest is the word and we will see what happens in the next few days.
