Throb in Hood

When you're 42 metres below the surface on one breath of air, and you feel a sensation like a hot knitting needle going into your ear, what do you do? No prizes for the answer to that one. When you pull your wetsuit hood back at the surface, and blood is seen coming out of your ear, what would you diagnose that as? Most of the folks I was with at the NDC last weekend thought I had ruptured my eardrum, and so did I. In fact, I may well have done, but there's a good chance that didn't actually happen. My GP can't get a clear view of the drum to see if it is intact, but I know that it isn't leaking air to the outside world if I pressurize my eustachian tubes.

The most likely explanation is external ear barotrauma, brought about by hood squeeze. At a certain depth the hood may have sealed against the ear, preventing air / water from entering / exiting. The existing air space contracts and creates a vacuum, followed by the rupture of the small blood vessels lining the external ear canal.

I've now changed my thoughts of an early and immediate retirement, back to the competition in hand. Constant Weight will have to be shallower than I would have liked, thanks to the injury. I won't be using liquivision goggles ( turns out that the new AIDA rules won't be in force for the CIPA Open ). As for statics, a steady series of dry 6m30s - 7m holds, and one pool 6m20s hold, have made me confident that the training programme has made a benefit. The next posting will indicate whether this was enough to break the current UK record or not.

As for the suit, I've now burnt holes into the hood at the ear points, using a soldering iron. Similar to a hot knitting needle, really.

Lost Between Two Shores

10 days R&R in the Turks and Caicos Islands have now passed, and 9 days remain before the CIPA Open Championships. The T&C were everything I could have hoped for - good diving, good company, and enough spare time to fit some training in. Not to mention a trip down memory lane, to an environment very similar to the one I grew up in.

The training was simply a mixture of wet & dry Hypercapnia tables ( table 'A' ). Not as abrasive as it sounds - the breathold time set to fixed 4 minute periods, with decreasing breathe-up intervals that range from 3 mins to 1m15s. Whether wet or dry was simply dictated by the pool temperature, and ended up being about 50/50 of each type. On the last day, I tried a dry progressive static. I couldn't get past 5 minutes. Dehydration? Over-training?? Perhaps a bit of both, with some pre-travelling stress thrown in for good measure. Anyway, I've put that behind me now, and since returning have managed 6m30s and 7m dry statics without too much problem.

I think that now it's time to come off the hypercapnia / hypoxia training, and concentrate on daily progressive statics. Also some CW training at the NDC. I need to make sure I am comfortable using Liquivision goggles in competition ( AIDA rules now allow these ).

Looking forward to Nice...but also beyond that, when I can make a start with digital underwater
photography.