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Queen of the Deep
19:46 p.m. EDT Jul 21, 2003
"All I want is another 4 metres", Tanya wrote in her diary. "Everywhere I go I look at trees or poles and ask if this or that is 4m high so I can get an idea of what I am adding. At least 10 times a day Paul will pace out 4m and tell me that it’s only a couple more pulls and a kick cycle underwater. “Imagine Gilles standing on my shoulders”, he’ll say, “That’s how much more it is.”
Well, today Tanya got a whole lot more than that! She descended to 122m/400feet on a single breath of air returning to the surface under her own power in a dive time of 3 minutes 38 seconds. Tanya shattered the earlier record (93.6 meters), set by Canadian Mandy-Rae Cruickshank by 40 meters!
Tanya broke the record for both the men's and women's Freediving in the Variable Weight category - no inflated bag coming up. Most Freedivers don't tolerate the extreme burn of lactic acid and carbon dioxide build-up during a sprinting ascent over two minutes long while holding their breath. Interestingly enough, women seems to freedive deeper than men these days. Tanya came up on her own where most Freedivers require the aid of an inflated liftbag.
Another woman, Audrey Mestre, 28, died Oct. 12 in a "no-limits" dive (riding sled down & inflatable bag up) with a target depth of 561 feet (168.3 meters). She was trying to break the world record of 531.5 feet (159.5 meters), set by her famous husband, Francisco "Pipin" Ferreras in January 2000. Pipin will attempt to break the No-limit world record later this year on what should have been Audrey's Birthday.
Austin based diver Tanya Streeter aimed to break the women's record of 312 feet in variable ballast diving. She took a deep breath and rode a weighted sled down a line into the water. No mask worn she was unable to see how far gone she was. She relied on a team of divers that clung metal rods together to signal her. Once she reached 400 feet she kicked back and headed back up to the surface. The dive took three minutes and 38 sec. The attempt took place July 19 2003 in Turks and Caicos, a string of islands in the Caribbean.
Image courtesy of Philip Shearer / Redefineyourlimits.com
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