Record-hunter digs deep

Cold, dark and with more than ten times the earth’s atmospheric pressure closing in on you – not a place most of us would go for kicks. But right there, 100m-plus below the ocean, is where top Kiwi freediver Dave Mullins excels

At the end of August, Dave, who’s sponsored by PlaceMakers Evans Bay, travelled to Bali to take part in the Australian Depth Nationals. He was competing in the constant weight apnea (CWT) class, where divers wear fins, but aren’t allowed to use a guide rope to propel themselves during their dive.

He was attempting to eclipse the current depth record of 128m, held by Russian Alexey Molchanov. Unfortunately, a combination of adverse conditions and a lingering injury combined to sink Dave’s chances – not to mention a swarm of jellyfish.

“Last February, I was diving in cold water with a lingering chest infection. As you get deeper, your ribs and intercostal muscles get squeezed – any inflammations just make it worse, and so I ended up damaging my ribs,” he says. “I thought I’d fully recovered, but I hadn’t. It meant I wasn’t able to train properly leading up to the attempt, or hold as much air in my lungs as usual.”

Despite that, Dave still managed to reach 115m: the second deepest recorded in 2015 and just 10m shy of his personal best.

“Overall, I wasn’t too disappointed with that effort. I’m a bit gutted I had to pull up, but the conditions were pretty tough,” he says. “The current was really strong, which makes the ascent much more difficult.

“There were also a lot of jellyfish in the water. I got stung a number of times and I’m still occasionally having trouble moving my hand!”

Diving straight back in

Dave now plans to ensure his chest fully recovers, before resuming depth training in Lake Taupo to prepare for another record attempt later this year in Greece.

Aside from holding several national freediving records in both depth and distance, Dave also holds the unofficial freshwater depth world record with a 100m effort in Taupo, where temperatures drop to 8°C below 38m.

“I’d like to break that and go for 110m this year; it would be a good confidence boost ahead of Greece.”

Also in Dave’s sights is the Spear Fishing World Championship in September, held in Syros, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea.

“The Europeans take it very seriously. It comes down to intelligence more than dive ability and they’re already scouting out the area to find the big fish,” he says.

World champion Kiwi freediver William Trubridge and NZ spearfishing champion Jono Sutton join Dave in the team.

“If we can beat a couple of the European teams, we’ll be pretty happy!”