KAILUA-KONA — Deep freediving can sound like a horror movie in the making.
Divers hold their breath for nearly three minutes with their body enduring several atmospheres of pressure, all while diving into darkness with the possibility of a blackout coming at any moment due to one of a million things that could go wrong.
To someone not familiar with deep freediving, it may seem that holding a breath for so long would be the hardest part of the dive. However, this is not so, according to Kona’s Daniel Koval, who broke the men’s national freediving record in the discipline of constant weight last week.
“In my freediving beginners course, I can teach most people to hold their breath for up to three minutes,” said Koval, who teaches for Deep Freediving Instruction. “Equalization is the most difficult part. You have to be able to handle extreme depths.”
Koval set the new record at the Vertical Blue International competition, which is held at Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas, by descending to a depth of 102 meters (335 feet) in a time of 2 minutes and 50 seconds.
While diving to the national record — toping Kailua-Kona’s Kurt Champers, who reached 101 meters in 2016 — Koval had to deal with 11 atmospheres of pressure, which produces roughly 162 pounds of pressure per square inch.
“Air is very important,” Koval said. “You need air to equalize. With your lungs compressing to the size of golf balls and acting like a vacuum, you need to be able to keep air inside your mouth to dive deep.”
Everything went right in Koval’s record dive, which came on his second attempt.
“My heart beat was as 70 beats a minute before the dive, which is quite normal, and I had gotten the nerves out of the way,” Koval said. “I started to go down and everything was going as planned.”
Koval added the water was pretty murky on his dive attempt, and at 70 meters, there was nothing but