Women's depth record

Jersey woman claims Channel Islands dive was deepest
Natasha Abels from Jersey claims to have established a new women's deep-diving record of around 180m, breaking that of 169m held by Dr Ann Kristovich.
Diving on trimix in Hurds Deep, west of Alderney, with friend and TDI technical diving instructor Mark Ellyatt, she recorded a depth of 174m on one computer, 182.9m on another.
The divers carried five cylinders containing varying trimix and decompression mixes. Descending relatively slowly "for a bit more control and better contact, and to reduce any chance of HPNS" [High Pressure Nervous Syndrome, which can occur beyond 180m], they switched to 12/24 trimix at 60m and 8/67 trimix at 120m.
Coming up, they repeated the 120m switch and made one-minute stops at 100m and 60m on travel trimix before stopping progressively from 1 minute to 46 minutes between 39m and 3m.
A worrying aspect was that both divers experienced shoulder bends, breathing oxygen on the boat and going straight for recompression treatment back in Jersey.
Recalling the dive, Natasha Abels told Diver: "By 80m it was pitch black and cooling down, and we landed on the seabed to see our shot bobbing on the end of its line.
"Mark had brought a video in the hope of filming toxic waste drums supposed to lie in the Deep, but we didn't see any - just one pink anemone and some pebbles on a gravel bottom. I grabbed a pebble as a memento before we started the long climb back."
Boredom struck during decompression and, as it was "a bit too swelly to play my underwater Connect 4, we resorted to charades instead".
Abels became interested in technical diving in 1995 while working as a scuba instructor in Barbados. She carried out deep air dives to 70m, 80m and 90m before suffering an oxygen hit with "full convulsions" at 130m.
"My life flashed before my eyes and amazingly I came around during my rocket ascent. My buddy actually fell asleep for five minutes down there, so he was fairly lucky, too. After that, I thought there must be a better way!"
In 1996 Abels took TDI Extended Range and Trimix courses with Ellyatt and, since then, the pair have deep-dived regularly on trimix.
"We did lots of dives to 90m, then 120m and finally twice to 150m," said Abels. "It was then that I read about the women's record being 168.8m, and thought I could safely handle 180m."
So what now? "I'd like to break the 200m barrier - and it would be a lot nicer to try in warmer seas. I might look at rebreathers next time."