The return
Nearly every freedive enthusiast in the world could plumb to 102m. The external pressure from the water does not make it easy, but it’s certainly the easiest part.
It’s getting back to the top that is tricky.
As Sir Edmund Hillary once dismissively noted when asked about the theory that George Mallory and Sandy Irvine may have summited Mt Everest some 19 years before he and Tenzing Norgay did: “I am rather inclined to think personally that maybe it i s quite important, the getting down, and the complete climb of a mountain is reaching the summit and getting safely to the bottom again.”
The rise to the surface can be torrid, though someone as adept as Trubridge will say it is all part of the process. “You can feel the effects of the negative internal pressure, the constriction of the sternum and the trachea,” he says.
Most of all, the body just wants to breathe. The respiratory system runs on instinct. It i s silently screaming in protest. The ribcage will expand and pull the diaphragm up. That’s its way of telling its human shell not just that it needs oxygen, but also that it needs to expel the carbon dioxide that has built up.
Trubridge desperately wants to feed the body what it needs and get rid of what it doesn’t, but first he must break the surface.
At 40m he is met by two safety divers, who use fins to tread water while monitoring Trubridge’s form and time.
During his failed attempt at 102m in December 2014, it was these divers who propelled him safely to the surface when Trubridge indicated he had nothing left to give.
This year, they would not be needed, instead acting as two benign observers with the best seats in the house. gulp the air that will fill your tortured lungs? But freediving protocol has one last mean trick for you: a three- step process to prove your mind has recovered sufficiently from its narcosis. Trubridge has 15 seconds to remove his facial equipment ( goggles and noseclip), make a sign to indicate he is okay, then verbally express he is okay. When this is done, Trubridge will weakly splash about; he will celebrate; he will spend the next 10 to 15 minutes panting as his respiratory system seeks the equilibrium it was denied for those four minutes and change. Within 36 to 48 hours, he will be fully recovered, physically at least. Then he’ll start to wonder, again.