The Deepsea Challenge 2015 was an event full of energy that put Bonaire on the map as one of the best places in the world to practice Freediving. Although Carlos Coste couldn´t reach his goal of breaking the Variable Weight world record, he showed once again that he´s a machine. Coste, with a single breath, maintaining an impressive self-control and with the help of a sled, descended to a depth of 126 meters at a speed of approximately 1.6 meters per second. He stopped and changed his technique to equalize his ears reaching at those depths 13.6 atmospheres; this means that the air volume in his body is being compressed around 14 times the volume at surface.
Coste remained at that depth for several seconds, trying to inject a few millimeters of air into his ears, yet again felt a discomfort in his left ear that didn’t allow him to equalize and reach his goal at 146 meters. He took the decision to leave the sled at the bottom and began his journey back only using a monofin. Three minutes and a half later, Carlos reached the surface, followed by his safety freedivers team in the last meters. He arrived to the surface showing a big smile, making the surface protocol to the judges as if he had only dove a few meters.
During the competition, the judges used the Raymarine Dragonfly to keep close watch of what was happening. Pam Werdath from Budget Marine who sponsored the Raymarine unit, mentioned: ‘Until recently, using a high definition fish finder for verification and safety was only a recommendation but this is now a requirement for freediving. We provided Carlos Coste with a Raymarine Dragonfly with Wifi to meet this requirement as the judges needed a reliable image to 500′.’ Coste mentioned on his facebook: “Freediving is evolving!! The technology is helping to keep a high level of safety in our event! This is why I want to say THANK YOU to our safety team and our sponsor Budget Marine & Raymarine who provided us with top level wifi sonar. ‘
Image from the ipad of Carlos Coste (from where he can control the sonar) with his last dive of 125m, the other lines are the safety diver around 80m, the safety freedivers, the sled that stopped at 125m, the bottom of the sea at 170m, his technique stop at 60m and more!
During the international competition that was taking place in parallel during ten days, 8 other freedivers from all over the world were challenged in other disciplines. Several national records on Constant weight and Constant weight without fins were realized by Honduras representative (Edgardo Andrade) and Chile representative (Sebastian Lira). Coste has broken 11 Freediving World Records during his career among others, being the first human passing 100m depth in unassisted Freediving discipline.
All final results can be found on the following link:
http://www.sportalsub.net/en/deepsea-challenge-bonaire-freediving-week-with-carlos-coste/
The event also had media coverage from Fox Sport program De Gira
