William Trubridge – Free Diver Born: May 24, 1980 in Haltwhistle, Northumberland. 1982: Family sells house to buy a boat and sets sail from Gibralter across the Atlantic. The next 4 years are spent sailing through the Carribean, Panama Canal and across the Pacific and its many islands. William learns to swim at the same time as he learns to walk, and at the age of 5 is spending most of his time in the water. 1986: Family arrives in NZ, 1990: In a trip to Vanuatu and New Caledonia William becomes fascinated by the idea of going as deep as possible while snorkelling. In a contest with his older brother William freedives to 15m (50 feet) and brings a handful of sand up from the bottom. He is 8 years old. 1993 - 1997: Schooling at Havelock North High School, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. 1997 - 2000: BSc in genetics at Auckland University. At University as well as competing in rowing William is president of the University theatre society, and acts in several of the productions that he helps produce. Shakespeare's 'The Tempest,' directed by his brother Sam Trubridge (a famous director/designer in NZ) is acted out in a swimming pool, with the audience sitting in stands around the pool, a platform in the middle and an enormous sail to separate back stage. In his stage entry as King Alonso William is required to swim underwater, under the platform to appear on stage in the middle of a raging tempest. 2000-2001: Works as a geneticist at Genesis laboratories in Auckland. 2002: Travelled to the UK via Samoa, USA and Canada. Worked for 1 year in Blakes hotel, South Kensington. 2003: William hears about the sport of freediving and the legend of Umberto Pelizzari, and decides to travel to Belize & Honduras in the Caribbean, where he spends 3 months doing nothing other than freediving. In July he travels to Santa Teresa Gallura, in Sardinia to attend Umberto Pelizzari's freediving course. Falling immediately in love with the island and its people, he quickly learns Italian, and works on a translation of Pelizzari's freediving manual into English. 2003 - 2004: William continues training with Pelizzari, and passes the Apnea Academy Instructors course, making him the first non-Italian instructor of this prestigious academy. Translation of the Apnea Academy Instructors Manual into English. 2005: William travels to the Bahamas, where he is to train for the World Record in Unassisted Freediving in Dean's Blue Hole, a 203m deep chasm located in Long Island. 2006: William reaches a depth of 82m in training for freediving, 2m deeper than the current world record. He travels to Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt to attempt the record officially, but a case of ciguatera (fish poisoning) weakens him and despite taking the tag from 81m he is unable to complete the dive. William is in training for a new attempt at the 80m world record, to be held in Sharm el Sheikh in October 2006... A freedive in the life: Here’s is what goes through William’s mind when he does a free – dive: In effect the dive starts as soon as I wake up in the morning. Not only do I have to make a decision, based on a myriad of variables, as to my target depth for the day, but I also have to convince myself that I am capable of the task. I guess in the same way that an artist must convince themselves, before making the first brushstroke, that they are worthy of the immaculate white canvas, or in the same way that the teacher must reassure themselves of their own expertise before confronting a new class of students at the start of the semester. There are many mental tricks that can be used, and it is important to vary them so that they maintain their effectiveness. Visualisation is probably the most powerful, and I will quite often lie down for 10 – 15 minutes in the morning to play through the coming dive in every detail, whilst listening to inspirational music. As I visualise the dive I can correct any bad techniques, soothe any apprehensions, and basically program my unconscious so that it will be able to operate my body to do everything necessary, whilst the cumbersome conscious mind is relegated to a distant corner. Positive affirmations are used to tweak and tune technique and general confidence. You can even make affirmations regarding things that we wouldn’t normally believe ourselves capable of influencing, such as “my mask will not leak,” and “nobody will distract me during my breathe-up” – the results prove that some part of the mind is listening, and is capable of realising the order. At least an hour before the dive I start my physical warm-up: twenty minutes of body stretching, followed by twenty minutes of lung stretching. The body stretches are a handpicked selection of asanas, sports stretches and creations of my own that target the muscles used in unassisted freediving. The lung stretches are probably disturbing to watch, but are crucial to my ability to equalise without using my hands down to 80m. At 10:30 in the morning we drive to the Blue Hole. The beauty of the site and its significance to me never passes unappreciated. From the beach I take 3 strokes to arrive at my buoy in the centre of the hole. It is anchored on two sides by ropes tied to dead coral on the rim of the hole, and the rope hangs down from a carabineer to a 1kg weight 82m (270 feet) below. The rope is marked at 5m intervals, and changes colour from white to blue at 55m (180 feet). My target for the day is 76m (250 feet) and a white plastic funnel is threaded upside down onto the rope and blocked by a knot at that depth. There is a tiny black seahorse attached to one of the anchoring ropes, and a juvenile pelagic swims close to my body for protection. Bar Jacks and Sergeant Majors make erratic trajectories through the otherwise empty blue beneath me. The fusile shadow of an enormous tarpon drifts out of a side cave 80 feet below. I close my eyes to better concentrate on my breathing. The breathe-up is easily the most critical step of the freedive. I must oxygenate my blood, but if I breathe too much then I risk starting the dive with too little carbon dioxide, meaning my body won’t realise that it is holding its breath and therefore act to conserve oxygen until later in the dive, when precious oxygen has already been wasted by greedy muscles. Carbon dioxide is what makes holding your breath painful, but it is also what tells the body to shut off blood flow to the periphery, conserving the oxygen for the only organs that cannot live without it: the heart and brain. My breathing is slow and deep, often with small breath holds of 10 – 15 seconds after the inhale. On one of the exhales I let out a humming noise, breathing out through my nose, with the bubbles streaming out the side of my mask. This is my way of greeting the sea before the dive. Almost all freedivers will warm-up before a maximum attempt by doing dives on empty lungs, or easy dives to about half target depth. The idea is that they stimulate the dive reflex before the dive, meaning that their heart rate will already be low, their metabolism slowed, and their spleen will have contracted, injecting fresh oxygen-carrying haemoglobin into the blood stream. Over the last year I have moved away from this consensus, developing a style of diving with no active warm-up whatsoever. The dive reflex is essentially a survival mechanism, and as with other survival mechanisms (for example fight or flight) the higher the level of stress the more powerful the reflex. So although I may start with a higher heart rate, it will slow more and quicker during the dive, and the spleen will contract after vasoconstriction, so that the red blood cells it supplies won’t be gobbled up by muscles. So for the 15 or so minutes that I lie face down in the water before diving I do nothing other than breath. The last 3 breaths are slightly more rapid and profound, then I raise my head above the water for the final inhale, followed by 15 packs (mouthfuls of air forced down the windpipe by the tongue). My right hand starts the stopwatch on my left wrist and I lean forward into the water that will be my world for the next 3 minutes. Over the next 3 minutes almost everything that I do is instinctive. If the rational mind refuses to sit still then it is given menial tasks such as singing a theme tune, counting arm strokes, or repeating mantras. Every movement, decision and contingency has been programmed through training drills and visualisation: essentially my mind is in a trance, while the body performs the dance that has been choreographed for it. The first act is a series of 6 strong and quick descent strokes. It is important to reach negative buoyancy as soon as possible so that I can relax into the freefall. I swim powerfully and decisively, watching the 5m markers as they tick by. I finish the sixth stroke with a strong armstroke that sends me whizzing past the 25 meter mark. Like a gannet folding into a dive, my hands find their place on the side of my thighs, my feet come gently together, a wave of relaxation passes through my body. I let my eyelids close over. The freefall has begun. The programmed command is read out to my body: ‘shut down, relax.’ I brush away any thoughts that may be sprouting, and allow time to pass without check. Every so often I open my eyes to confirm my position against the descent line, and maybe make slight adjustments so that I am falling completely parallel to it. Each time my eyes open the water is slightly darker, the line in front of my face slightly fainter. A slight increase in the pressure on the crown of my head tells me I am falling slightly faster. My lungs shrink inexorably, drawing my diaphragm up under the ribcage. A great sense of peace and well-being takes over from any remaining sensations that may have been brought down from the surface. It is impossible to judge for how long I have been falling, and I can only guess at the depth from the intensity of the pressure. I do not try to guess, but rather commit myself to endless falling, placing my faith in the knowledge that the next command will come. I open my eyes again and see that the line in front of me has turned blue, meaning I have passed 55m. This triggers another command to relax, relax deeper still, and I use my mouth as a pump to draw a last mouthful of air out of my collapsing lungs, locking them off with the epiglottis. The lungs are now of no use to me in order to equalise my mask and ears – the air I have drawn into my mouth will have to suffice for the remainder of the dive. A fluorescent yellow tag slips by in the night, meaning I am at 60m. I feel the mask pressing gently against my face, and I pass a small amount of air – just enough – out of my nose to compensate the mask. I am falling very quickly now, faster than most people can swim on the surface, and I feel the water rushing past my head. The speed of the freefall is compelling, as if the water was sucking me into its depths. There is a blur of yellow as I plunge past the mass of fluorescent string tied at 70 meters. The air in my mouth has almost all been used, and I manage to squeeze a sip into my mask and ears. My body is still completely vertical, my gaze remains straight ahead at the line inches away from my nose. A few seconds after the 70 meter mark I turn my head to look down and see the white funnel a couple of meters further down the line. Without halting my fall I put my left hand loosely around the line and reach out with my right hand. The left hand clamps around the line at the same instant as my right hand touches the funnel at 76m. My torso and legs fall past the left hand, and I feel the weight of my body hang off my arm. For a split second I am suspended in the abyss, with one hand touching the goal that was programmed into my unconscious mind. If I was capable of thought I would realise that the dive has only just begun. Gripping the line tightly I pull hard and long, pushing my body past my left hand and back towards the surface. Straight away my legs coil under me, then spring out to push me upwards. At the same time my arms follow the line of my body and extend beyond my head. The fingers curl and hands part the water, feel its resistance and push downwards, levering my body upwards. One stroke. The legs coil, kick back, and shut together; the hands catch the water and scull it past the body. Two strokes. My mind is now in a state of torpor – the carbon dioxide in my blood, multiplied by the pressure, is starting to cloud the brain and nerves. If I was to remain at this depth I would gradually drift into a deep narcotic sleep. The muscles are not affected, and they operate on their given orders, listening to each other and collaborating with each stroke. If I was to look upwards (and I never do) I wouldn’t see anything that remotely resembles the surface. The water above is slightly paler than that below and to the sides, but is otherwise an undifferentiated blue. The Blue Hole opens out under its lip at 15 meters into the second largest underwater cavern in the world, and it would be too dark to see the walls even if they were close by. There are no fish that want to be seen, no shapes in the featureless blue. After 7 strokes the line turns back to white. It wasn’t so long ago that this was where I would turn for the surface: as it is now I have already been ascending for almost half a minute. A tune is turned on in my mind, and I settle into swimming to its beat. The rational mind stirs in its sleep with small flashes of paranoia and calculation, but both are brushed aside, pacified by the programmed response: ‘there will be time for thoughts later.’ The water is becoming clearer and I am aware of the shadows and shapes of the wall of the Blue Hole around me. My stroke slows slightly as I become more positively buoyant, and I linger after the armstroke to glide upwards on my own momentum. A yellow clip attached to the rope at 24 meters (80 feet) passes me by. This marks the deepest point reached by Sam and Charlie, but for me it is a reason to smile, as it means the dive is nearly over. 20 strokes, and the lip of the Blue Hole comes in to view, light flooding in from all angles. I slow my stroke to savour the last moments of the dive. There is no great urge to breath, but I know this can be deceptive, and I remind myself to concentrate on my breathing as soon as I reach the surface. I glance upwards for the first time during the dive and see the buoy close above me. One last stroke, the twenty third, sends me whizzing past the mark at 5 meters and I instantly relax all the exhausted muscles as I allow positive buoyancy to take over, hoisting me the remaining few meters to the surface as the bubbles stream out of my mask. A fraction before the surface I feel a swelling in my lungs and I let the air come out in a cascade of bubbles. I break the surface and breathe in sharply, then immediately out with force. Several more breaths follow, and with each I move 6 litres in and out of my lungs in the space of a couple of seconds. I take my mask off and enjoy the luxury of breathing through my nose. I make the OK signal to my dive partners, whose presence in the water I had completely forgotten about. For the next 3 – 5 minutes I will continue panting deeply. As the blood rushes back into the muscles it is immediately swamped with the carbon dioxide and waste products created during the dive, and all this is transported to the lungs for unloading. I settle back into a different kind of relaxation. The objective has been reached, and the instinctive mind draws back, allowing reason and analysis to claw over the few memories I have of the previous 3 minutes. In the end there is nothing that they can tell me that isn’t already revealed by the smile on my face and the peace in my heart.