Hi

Interresting...

Thus we can deduct that the Brits, the NJ divers and the South African Western Cape divers the best divers in the world, based on that analogy...

Our and their water is mostly low visibility, between 8'C and 15'C (very cold), strong, surgy. Open ocean dives.
45 min deco is 8'C water, with a torn drysuit seal and u will not make it either.....

The guys do training at one of our local tech facilities (an old abandonned asbestos mine) where the water temp seldom reaches more than 15' C and even less at depth and the max depth is +/- 135m, and then should rate in the "top" divers in the world.?? (They can't go deeper because it isn't deeper.)

Personal friends have dived in a "mine dam/lake" called Samada, with <1m viz, (brown muddy water) to a depth of 80m (bottomed out) & 10'C on the surface ..
Where do we draw the line for claiming records, because due to those conditions that must be a world record of some kind (In fact.. it is regarded a local provincial record, just unofficial and quite unclaimable, because there are no such records or categories in which records can be claimed. It is however still the deepest ever dive in that province (quite a flat place... )

So how do we equate apples with apples....

Any dive beyond 50m, or where a decompression ceiling is incurred, is a BIG dive, no matter where you are diving, and no matter what the "Alpha's" say..
We all know the risks..Just as many divers have perished in open ocean deco diving than in caves, records or not..

I just think the list of records are becoming a bit rudiculous....
It's is an encyclopedia that has to be read, 1000 diferent conditions...
There are so many these days that nobody even knows actually, who has done what.

Isn't that doing exactly what must not be done to a record, by taking the prestige out of it? One off these days we won't be able to claim a record, because it won't be worth the paperwork.

All things being equal, and trip sponsorships by the way side, if U want to claim a record, go to the best conditions possible, do it as long as possible for a deep as possible.

The last I remember is Nuno Gomes did a 318.25m in the Red Sea (later converted to 325m due to line stretch, but not recognised by the diver!!) on OC. I heard that even that has been surpassed.

The latest freediving record, (No limits) is 240m or something???

Regards

Johan