A story about two deep dives
Yasemin and David breaking records under the FREE flag 2001.
Text: Sebastian Naslund (webmaster)
Photos by: Gido Braase, Ali Atauz, Corinne Bultel and Sebastian.
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Back on Jamaica for christmas David will spend lots of hours in the "lagoon". He has his mind on to at least learn how to stop swimming all the way down and instead freefall in a more gentle way. I would say he suffers from a "go-grab-it" martial arts attitude.

Rudi Castineyra is the one who stays longest in the water when any of his adepts tries a new record. He can title himself "freedivertrainer" and has coached among others Tanya Streeter, Yasemin Dalkilic and David Lee to new records.

Rudi spent his youth in Cuba during the "good old days" diving with among others Pipin. He learnt alot by studying the national swimming team training with all the scientific support the communist countries used to give their athletes. Three years of biology studies has also bettered his understanding of freediving. Now both he lives in Miami.

It would not be an exageration to say that Rudi leaves very little to luck when conducting a recordsetting attempt.

David Lee was brought up in his mothers dive shop on Jamaica. Somewhere a long the line he got tired of the scuba tanks and when Rudi met him he already freedove beyond 30 meters.

He now lives in Oklahoma, USA working as a computer engineer, counting every hour to the next dive.

To the left (down) we see him explaining why he (at 30 meters) aborted an attempt to dive to 50 meters without fins. I just felt there was not enough air "for the ears". It was just one of those days.
In Greece on the island KOS he had to be content with taking back his unassisted record from Erez Beatus (Israel) and Trevor Hutton (South Africa), when he dove to 47 meters.
Seeing David dive one knows that he has more to give. There are still some things to his technique that can be polished, claims Rudi.

With Yasemin Dalkilic (right) it is another story. Yasemin is truly aquatic. There is no effort to be seen when she moves under water. A few years in the turkish national monofin team got her movements quite fluent.
To the left we see her picking the tag at 40 meters at the first women unassisted record ratified by FREE. Aida has not got this category in it´s list of records. Which one might find strange the more one thinks of it, since it is the most natural form of freediving.
Everything is not easy for Yasemin though. Her first attempt to 40 was disqualified since she touched the line twice.

FREE doesn´t allow even a touch on the line while descendending and ascending. This is strange to hear for a scandinavian who really need the hand to glide along the reference line since northern waters gets pitch black at certain depths. Visibility at KOS in Greece where more than 40 meters during Yasemin and Davids attempts.

Yasemin also tried to dive to 72 meters in the assisted constant ballast category. With fins , that is.
Due to several problems she couldn´t do this - despite beeing in very good shape. Administrational problems, weather, time... everything worked against her and the team during the last 10 days.
On the last attempt she took the tag at 72, came up, delivered it to the judge and then blacked out. The FREE organisation (and Yasemin) choose not to approve this record, even though the tag was delivered.

All safetydivers signal at certain decided depths. This helps the athlete to know when to change technique - for instance a reminder that now it is time to freefall - now it is time to look down.

Read more Page 2

FREE on the official site.
David Lee and his record.
Yasemin Dalkilic and her records.
The Ibiza world championships.