Morten Villadsen - So much water, so little time...

National Record and winner of Dahab Mini-Comp

2010-05-25T02:24:00.008+04:30

On day 2 at the ”Mini-Comp” in south Sinai, I announced that I would attempt to set a new danish record in Free Immersion of 71m. In the disciplin ”Free immersion” you pul yourself down a rope to a target depth and up again using your arms. I had to pull myself down to the depth of 71m and back on a single breath of air.

When we arrived to the competitionspot in Sharm el Sheik, big waves where thundering on to the coast – and I had second thoughts about having announced a national record. Would it be possible to set a record in these conditions?

One hour went by and like magic the waves calmed down and the first freedivers of the competition came back from their dives speaking of quite good conditions, only small waves and such. I had no excuse. I had to go out and give it my best shot.

The warm up-dives went really well and I was more than ready when the judge said: ”Two minutes to official TOP”. I was barely breathing, to make sure I wouldn’t be hyperventilated. ”One minute”. Just a few breaths more, then a big exhale and a even bigger inhale and then I started to pull myself downwards.

The first meters are – for me – always a bit messy. I have to adapt to be in the water and orientate me head-down. But slowly I find my rythm and soon I become heavier than the surrounding water and start the freefall to the bottom of the rope. Only focusing on relaxing and equalising my ears.

The surrounding water down here had a more dark blueish colour and I knew that I was close to my goal my hand bumps into the bottomplate ”that was quick!” and I start pull myself up. My arms are fresh and strong and I hardly feel any lactic acid building up. The safetydivers meet me at 30m and tries to keep up with my pace as I am gliding past them to the surface.

At the surface I breath 2-3 times before I look the judge into the eyes and smile. After some time she decides to give me a white card for a valid performance – and my first national record!

Day 3 I announced 74m - new personal best. Did the depth with style and won the whole competition! So very happy :)

Photos are moviestills taken by AI FUTAKI in apnea.

Morten

Riga Freediving Cup 2010

2010-02-15T03:57:00.014+03:30

Silver, Gold and personal records!

At Riga Freediving Cup 2010, 12.-14. February, we were over 30 participants (11 girls) from Estonia Ukraine, Germany, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania and Denmark.

I participated together with two clubmates from Copenhagen: Astrid and Cristina.

Competition

The competition was well organized. Accommodation at a sports complex with

swimming pool and restaurant was ideal for athletes who therefore also did

great results and many national and personal bests.

The first day was STA and DNF.

Newcommer Astrid Rosenvold made the 3rd longest dives in

static among the girls with a nice time: 5 minutes. The second

longest dive among the girls was made by her clubmate Cristina

Kuemmel, 5:04. My static dive was not very good due to bad preparation, but the result was so far my best in competition. And my DNF of 109m ws really nice and since this is a new disciplin for me - then I think there is more to come! After day one the team ranked nr. 2.

Day 2

Day 2 had only a single discipline on the program. Dynamic with fins (DYN).

Denmark is traditionally good at this discipline so we had some shoes to fill...

Beginner Astrid made a robust personal record with a dive to 104m, Cristina dived 120m. And I knew that I had the possibility of making a good result and that this could result in a very good position in the individual overall rank.

I had to do more than 153m (my training PB is 150m) to beat one of my competitors and swim at least 14m longer than the freediver that was going after me. A bit of a pressure, but I was ready for the challenge!

After a long, slow dive of nearly 3-minute time I came to the surface after a surprising 178m! This result placed me in front in of the competition and when the nearest competitor subsequently didnt deliver similar results... then I ended up winning the whole competition!

In team competition the Lithuanian team (all men) unforunately manage to keep the lead - and subsequently we: Astrid, Cristina and I ended up with team-silver. What a nice suprise! This is the first competition I have ever won - and the first medals for me in freediving. To get both silver and gold is more than I would ever hope for! I will post videos from the dynamic dives later...

The Danish results:

Astrid Rosenvold STA: 5:00, DNF 61m, DYN 104m

Cristina Kuemmel STA 5:04, DNF 80m, DYN 120m

Morten Villadsen STA 5:56, DNF 109m, DYN 178m

Copenhagen Diveshow 2010

2010-02-01T00:32:00.010+03:30

Excuse me, can I get your attention, please?

Copenhagen Diveshow is one big monster of people, shops, companies, dealers, agents, customers, organisations, retailers, embassies, magazines and among all these people you also find some freedivers and spearfishers. Some are doing static for the show of it, in a big pool, some are selling books, some are selling equipment and others are just curious to see whats going on in the Diveshow. And a lot IS truly happening out there!

I was there too, to do two "photoshows" in the shop of www.sportsbutikken.dk. The first photoshow

was about spearfishing in Norway - the second was about how to get started with freediving. Apart from having acoustic competition with a brass band (in another part of the building) both shows went quite well and people was interested afterwards about how they could start freediving, how they could improve their performances and have succes as spearfishers and freedivers...

Very positive and apart from the very hectic atmosphere (which really is a part of the game in such places...) very funny as welll.

This year, 2010, I will do more teaching of AIDA freedivercourses and it seems there are quite a few people out there very interested. This week I (toghether with www.uv-sport.dk) will set up the courses with dates prices and you name it... If you are interested as well, feel free to write me an email. See you!

Plans for 2010!

2010-01-23T18:49:00.007+03:30

Courses and Competitions!

Planning a year is always difficult - not time for everything!

But so far I have decided to join quite a few competitions and do a lot freediving and spearfishing courses.

Here is the preliminary list (more courses will come here: Freediving Courses)

31st January. Copenhagen Diveshow

I will show some photos and tell stories about spearfishing in Norway and how to get started with freediving. Sunday 12.00 and 15.00 at the stall of Sportsbutikken (Stall: C4-18)

13.-14. February. Riga Freediving cup 2010

Swimmingpool competion in the disciplines: Static, Dynamic, Dynamic without fins.

Looking forward to visit Latvia and maybe do some good results together with Astrid.

5th.-6th of June. Danish Championchips in Spearfishing

Last year I won silver in both individual and team and I hope to do a good result again.

11th-13th June. Freediving Course

Working with Decoshop.dk I will teach a 2* Star AIDA freediving course in Horsens, Jutland.

23rd-24th July. Nordic Championchips, Finland

The big yearly competition will be held in Rauma, Finland.

18th-19th September. National Spearfishing team election

The yearly election for next years national team. Hope to qualify again - but in spearfishing you never know!

26th October - 1st November. Trident de Neptune (preliminary dates)

A spearfishing competition in Tunisia. Im going as a part of the Danish National Team.

Hope to see some you good people out there!

- and don´t worry... more events will come soon...

Morten ;-)

Good news travel far and fast!

2010-01-13T18:00:00.006+03:30

After having made the Icediving video a few days ago the clip started to circulate. Then yesterday I got a call from a journalist wishing to make a short television clip about the under-ice freediving-thing.

So I had to jump into the cold lake again and do some freediving for the camera... the videoclip is quite short (and I still prefer my own video) - but I managed to put freediving on television and even in the newssection so I guess Im quite satisfied :)

http://www.tv2regionerne.dk/?id=523651&r=5

Enjoy!

Under Ice Freediving

2010-01-10T23:46:00.008+03:30

An ICE COOL experience...

Together with my friend I wanted to do a freedive under the ice in the lake where I usually train depth. The weather was cold and windy, the sun were almost setting - but we really wanted to do it. After a few dives Knud (my friend) found some crayfish and we started to collect some. After one hour I was freezing to much and decided to leave the water. My D4 divecomputer said that the water was -3 degrees. I dont know if that is possible...? Knud stayed a few more dives before we return to the car. Back in my apartment we made a nice crayfish afternoon snack... I hope you will enjoy the COOL video!

A day and a dive in Dahab

2009-12-14T19:19:00.007+03:30

Woke up 8.00. Small breakfast. Meet the others at Freedivedahab at 9.00. Drive to Blue Hole. One hot lemon without honey. Putting on my worn out 3mm wetsuit and 3 kg of weight on my belt. Relaxing a bit in the sun. Swimming out to the line. My first warm-up (half empty lungs) to 19.5m ended abruptly when I by mistake swallowed all the air I had in my mouth to use for equalisation. The other freedivers were watching from above. Second warm-up dive. In this dive I did'nt swallow the air in my mouth and went all the way to 27.7m. Good. Im ready. After another minutes on the surface I was starting to get cold and needed to dive soon. My last deep breath with 4 packs on top of my full lungs and then a horrible duckdive into the line. Trying to keep calm and focused despite the bad start I continue to kick myself downwards with my monofin. At 22m my depth alarm sounds and tells me to take the famous mouthfill of air up from my lungs to the mouth. Good. I keep kicking slowly, slowly using the air in my mouth to make equalization. At about 35-38m I stop kicking since the air in my suit and my lungs is so compressed down here that my buoyancy is now negative and without moving a single muscle Im falling quicker and quicker down the line. At around 50m I see the arch (a big tunnel of blue water connecting The Blue Hole with the Red Sea) and I keep looking at the giant doorway until my other depth alarm sounds. Now Im close to the end of my rope. At the bottom, 1:14 after I have left the surface, I turn and start kicking myself upwards again. I enjoy the view of the arch and take care not to get tired in my legs too early. Around 45m I put my arms above the head and start looking for the safetydivers that should meet me around 25m. Oh, there is Linda smiling to me :) Where is Astrid? Oh, there she is... and now Im close to the surface so I relax and float calmly up to the surface. 2:33 has passed and Im feeling very OK. Happy smiling, I look at my divewatch and realize I just did a personal best with a few meters. The rest of the day I did nothing but smiling, resting and eating. Tomorrow is another day. Another deep dive.

Sharks, whales and whalesharks

2009-11-04T18:46:00.007+03:30

Freediving with the big creatures... and some small too...

Mozambique has so far offered excellent freediving with big marine creatures. All quite accessible. And spectacular. In Pemba we went on a dolphin safari (you know, the kind of boattrips where you look for dolphins, but dont see them) and suddenly there was a whale! a humpbackwhale with a small calve. And we went in the water as it dove - but only reappear just under us and break the surface just in front of us - with the calve following close... that must have been the biggest thing I have ever seen move. As a contrast to the big whale - Pemba bay was this day filled with jellyfish, which added a psychedelic touch to the whole experience...

In Tofo (a bit boring place for a freediver) was i lucky to snorkel with a whaleshark. It was slowly cruising around and astrid and I followed it for some minutes until we got tired of keeping up with its speed. At one point the shark turned and passed one meter below me (I was in the surface and very excited).

Lately Astrid found out how to equalize with the fenzel Technique allowing her to go much deeper and she is now fooling around at +15m of depth taking pictures of what sealife passes

by...

On a drop east of the island of Ibo we found some whitetip sharks (small reefsharks 1-2m)that were cruising around at 18-19m depth. Astrid and I took turns photographing them while the other was waiting in the surface. A very nice experience.

Spearfishing offshore Maputo

2009-10-17T16:33:00.006+03:30

Fishing with Nuno Dias and Emiliano

The day started early. 5 oclock I was woked up and off to Club Naval we drove. Rigging the guns, checking the gear and putting on some mid 90ties electropop on the boats stereo. Off we went. 1 1/2 hour out on the other side off Inhaca Island. 55km Offshore. First spot was fishing bluewater flasher style - no luck. Next stop was a big big reef with lots of wrecks. 10-18m. Fantastic. Lots of reef fish. In my first dive I dove directly down on a big freeswimming grouper, but beeing used to bad visibility from the Northern Hemisphere I misjudged the distance to the big fish and my spear didnt even reach the head before falling down on the wreck... That was my first dive. And it was only 12m deep. In the next two dives I saw nothing but just tried to calm down and focus. Then Emiliano dove down and was suddenly followed by 3 big creatures... I had no idea of what species - seeing them from the surface I thought of mini-torpedo-dolphins - but then as I approached I saw that it was big GTs (kingfish) and I took a shot to the biggest - but was again tricked by anxiety and good visibility and the spear hardly touched the fish. NOW I needed to get a grip on this... Easy now, Morten... Approaching a small edge overlooking a wreck was a nice predator swimming in the distance. Easy Morten... Wait. The fish got closer. I made some sounds and little by little I saw that it was a nice size. and quite close now. Waiting even a few seconds more and then I pulled the trigger and spear flew through the fish just behind the gills - a little too low, but still a good holding shot. I rushed to the surface with my hand on the line trying to pull the fish off the bottom where it started thrashing the spear around. I was really surprised by this strength! After a few minutes the fish was under control and Emiliano grabbed it and put it in the boat. A green Job Fish and with 8.8kg a quite good size too.

Then later Nuno shot a grouper and we spent some time pulling it out of the cage at 12m depth. But it succeeded at last. Meanwhile the grouper had attracted a few other fish that was effectively shot by Nuno and Emiliano during the pulling out proces. I got another Jobfish and managed to do the final pulling out of the gropuper before we took off to more dirty places (bad vis). Here it was 1-2 dives and then the spot were finished. As a newbie in these spots I watched Nuno and Emiliano working the spots catching very nice fish... very very nice fish. On one of the dirty spots we saw big schools of GTs rushing through the wreck and a giant grouper (named Rosalina, by Nuno and E) of +150kg patrolled the area. Quite astonishing and scary to see that big fish in that bad vis.

The day ended with a GT of 15kg shot by Nuno inside the wreck with a killshot. And with loud Electropop from last century we drove the boat back through the wind and waves. A very good day of fishing... Thanks to Nuno and Emiliano - and their fabolous boat "African Pompano".

btw I didnt even mention the whales on the way out, the rays and turtles on the reef and and and...

Freediving with sharks in False Bay

2009-09-19T19:08:00.008+04:30

Kings of the kelpforest!

Sevengill Cowshark doesnt sound of much... does it? But to dive with them in 4-6m visibility in the chillish waters of False bay among big boulders and giant kelp - is quite an adventurous freedive! Steve, Astrid and I went for a day at the Cape Peninsula to see wildlife and dive with sharks... False bay is quite famous for its Great White Sharks but we had other plans than sitting stuffed into a cage with a bunch of other people... In a small channel in the kelpforest at about 10m of depth congreate the Cowsharks in late winther/spring. I was a little worried about the visibility and if Astrid could dive down to them. But after a few waits on the bottom. The sharks were there - and Astrid had nearly bumped into one from above as she came swimming downwards to the bottom. So cool. The sharks were quite confident and curious - they knew who rule the kelpforest! So we had awesome diving with these big fishes! Wow!

Below here are pictures from Dassin Island were we swam with the dolphins (in bad vis, but still...) and had a great day!

Last but not least I wanted to show you one of the best human/marinelife/freediving pics I have taken so far (please dont steal it). It was at Duiker Island in grrreat viz and with a lot a lot of seals hanging around to check us out... Cape Town, Steve, Hanli: Thank you!

For more photos from this day check: http://www.animalocean.co.za/diary/2009/09/cowsharks-ostriches-and-cape-point/

Cape Town. Marinelife Freediving

2009-09-14T16:53:00.008+04:30

Cape Town Rocks!

So sorry for not uploading pics - the connection is slow.

Together with Hanli http://www.hanlifreediver.blogspot.com/ and Steve http://www.animalocean.co.za/ me and Astrid went to Dassin Island on the west coast to have a long waterday. Diving with Dusky Dolphins after 10 minutes boatride was grrreat even thou the vis was rather bad (the dolphins turned within 2-3m from my face) after getting to the island we did some freediving in the kelpforest looking for sharks in much better visibility. We only found some small sweet Pyjamas sharks which were rather cute and slow bottomsharks. Everywhere there were lots of crayfish and fish called "Hottentot" which I speared one of - Steve showed his talents of and shot a nice size Yellowtail... :) Everywhere were lots of Comorants and Pelicans - and one great experience was to get real close with a curious Cape Fur Seal while it was resting in the kelp suddenly exploding in a series of summersaults before dissappearing in the underwaterjungle. Next day we went to freedive at Duiker Island together with many many Cape Fur Seals - and I took tons of photos... Astrid was doing really good in the big waves and I got some nice underwatershots of her swimming with the seals... The next days I will try to do some freediving with Penguins and Cow-sharks. The great whites I can live without...

Pics will follow another day.... Hope you will too!

Leaving tomorrow

2009-09-08T17:30:00.001+04:30

All my bags are (nearly) packed, Im (nearly) ready to go. Im (nearly) standing here outside your door...

First stop will be Cape Town... and then, and then, and then....

Can´t wait.

Leaving soon. just need to get the final stuff in my bags... and then 3½ month dedicated to adventure, passion and dreams.

Astrid (my girlfriend) travels with me and I feel lucky to be able to share this experience with a person so very dear and close to me...
This blog will be updated along the way.... stay tuned.

Nordic Championship in Spearfishing

2009-08-28T04:11:00.005+04:30

BORNHOLM!

We have been organising and planning this for a year now. We have chosen what we think are the best areas and then we planned, organized and then planned a bit more.

The island of Bornholm is rocky. That is seldom in Denmark where most ocean bottom consist of pure sand - or mud for a change... The Codfishing in Bornholm is rather good - but it should also be possible to catch one of those elusive trouts they have so many of in Bornholm. It is also nice for a change to have a competition with great depths close to shore. My depth training and adaptation is really good. I have dived +25m every week since june and feeling really confident with it. So with luck and a little help from my teammates Ole and Mads I hope to get some medals... After Bornholm and the championships I have 2 days to pack my bag for 3½ month in Africa. But that is another story... Stay tuned for more.

Btw. beeing at the WC in freediving was a really good experience. I got my photos and learned a lot from photographing alongside some very skilled photographers. I hope my article will come out soon in the magazine. Jakob did 6:45 and 159m DYN with me as his coach. I was very proud of him. Nice going doing PBs at the World Championchips...

Freediving. Preparing for the pool WC in Århus

2009-08-18T18:44:00.009+04:30

Training with Jakob for WC

In 2008 I took a freedive AIDA Instructor Course with Jakob Hansen (a.o). At that time we were close to the same level in freediving. Since then - things have changed. I have been progressing a bit - and Jakob a bit more... He has qualified for the WC in pool in Århus in static. So we were training for this. Actually Im starting to like static more and more. Just floating around not doing one single thing... fight the contractions when they come, stay focused and positive - and first of all: Keep going!

Freedivers all have their ideas of how they wanted to be coached during static - so the coach has to know the athlete very well before a competition. This is definately teamwork. When it comes to static Im trying to learn the "no-warm-up" approach, but it has not taking me beyond the 5minutes yet. It becomes so nasty - so I chicken out somewhere in between 3 and 5 minutes. The second breathold is always better and yesterday it took me to 5.50 which I have only reached once before. Im very proud of that result and felt as if I had even more in me. Good. And Jakob? He is doing good. I look forward to see his perforamance, when I go to Århus tomorrow to cover the event for magazine http://www.fridykking.no/

Bretagne - one week in the hardcore school of spearfishing

2009-08-16T03:52:00.010+04:30

One week. In short.

Host and very friendly: French Topspearo Ludovic Herpe.

Weather: Good Bretonic Summerweather (that is bad weather)

Sea: Cold and Murky (2-5m vis).

Conditions: Current, Big waves.

Fishing: Difficult, deep, technical, rough, challenging, fun!

Nature: Fantastic!

Fish : (not all shot) Seabass, dorade gris, dorade rouge, dorade royal, sargos, conger, pulp, squid, spidercrab, sunfish, triggerfish, lobster, pollack + a lot of mullet and wrasse...

Good company: Johan

Transport: Johans car for 20 hours in each direction, Ludovics boat all the week. Both vehicles had breakdowns...

Overall experience: Strikingly good!

"If you can catch a lot of fish in Bretagne, you can catch a lot of fish everywhere"

We have to come back...

Iceberg freediving - the video!

2009-08-10T18:30:00.006+04:30

Video from Greenland

One of the many reasons why I travelled to Greenland was that I made a part of my job. Im a teacher in a school called "Haslev udvidede Højskole" and next year, 2010, will I travel with my students to do kayaking, hiking and maybe freediving/spearfishing along the southgreenlandic coast... Anyway. I made this video for the promotion of this school - but the video contains a freedive alongside an Iceberg - so I thought I wanted to publish it here on the blog as well...

Freediving with Icebergs...

2009-07-31T12:02:00.008+04:30

Now I tried it! - but im still hungry for more...

Freediving along side an Iceberg in Greenland was one of my dreamdives to do. You always hear about icebergs that it is only the upper 10% that are visible... so now I know how the remaining 90% is like. I found a rather small iceberg and dove under it until I could see its bottom at 7m of depth. Great experience unlike anything I had tried before.

The other days in Greenland went by with kayaking, glacier hiking, fishing for arctic char, spearfishing for cod, flounder and scorpionfish and -ofcourse - visiting my friend, Arne, in Qaqortoq. Arne took me on a weekendtrip with his family to some hot springs in the south. On that trip we saw both seals and whales (minke whale and finwhale). Ofcourse whenever we came close to a seal Arne raised his gun trying to get an aim - no wonder we only saw a few of them... The intensive hunting of seals (and everything else) was also the reason why I was wearing a yellow swimcap on top of my 7mm wetsuit. You dont want to be confused with a seal in this patrt of the world.

The family offered me all kinds of traditional greenlandfood. Some of it was very good, some of it I have to practise a bit on before enjoying. But the trout was very delicious!

Next stop Greenland!

2009-07-21T18:59:00.008+04:30

A dream come true...

The Arctic!

The Wild!

The Icebergs!

Greenland!

Everythings ready. My bag is stuffed with neoprene, food, sleeping gear (tent, matress, sleeping bag) and several kilos of camera equipment.

Short trip. 2 days og Kayaking, 2-3 days of hanging out with my dear friend, Arne (who is native inuit and likes kayaking), and 1 day of visiting the "Inland Ice Cape". In between I hope to freedive alongside an Iceberg, take tons of cool (hahaha) pictures and spearfish for some exotic species. I have brought my travel gun that breaks down in two. So much looking forward! See you in a week!

Teaching spearfishing/freediving course

2009-07-19T02:59:00.009+04:30

If this is a dayjob - I don't care for weekends...

Its been a great week! i have been teaching a course with one of my dearest underwater friends, Johan, and everything has worked out so fantastic. The weather was boiling hot, no wind to speak of and lots of happy people and beautiful underwater experiences.

Already at day one a few students dived to +20m (and did nice PBs!) in a dark cold lake filled with freshwater crayfish. The beginners concentraterd more on the crayfish than the deepdiving and if you boil them right from a clean lake this and add a few drops of lemon, then crayfish is really delicious!

The spearfishing course took place at the school where I work regularly www.huh.as and we started the day with a short briefing about the divespot and some tricks and hints on which technique to use and so on... then we took off and dived at shallow rocky reefs, under brigdes, around remote islets and nice wrecks (Cod!) and caves too... A lot of the students had good chances of shooting and swimming with 2-4kg fish and everybody succeded in catching a few nice specimens...

The next few days I will be hanging around in Copenhagen preparing my next adventure:

Greenland.

Underwater journalist and photographer!

2009-07-08T02:27:00.012+04:30

I have been given the oppurtunity to join the editorial staff of the new Norwegian magazine: "Fridykning og Undervannsjakt" ("Freediving and Spearfishing") www.fridykking.no

My editorial area will be "Apnea/Freediving and Exotic Spearfishing". This is very cool - and Im very happy for it!

My first article for the June edition was about the basics in competitive freediving. The disciplines and the basic rules. My next article will be about a roadtrip with fellow spearos to the arctic Barents Sea. Freediving and catching kingcrabs. You can read the whole story in september when the edition #2 is published.

As a kid I dreamt of beeing a journalist (never dreamt of beeing a freediver as a child) - but now I dream about freediving all the time... so I guess its a good mix!

2009-07-06T05:27:00.004+04:30

Freediving in Furesøen (Lake Fure)

Today I was picked up by Mads Isberg and we went straight to Furesøen (our local "deep" lake) for some depth training. We were in fact 6-7 freedivers in the lake today and as soon as we met we started talking about the new danish record of 91m in Constant Weight, by Jesper Stechmann. We were all very inspired and eager to get in the water ourselves!

The visibility was 2-4meters and the temperature was 21 in surface and below 10 at the bottom (25-30m). But to get to the deep part of the lake - you have to swim a kilometer or so... Its nice to feel my spearfishing hours keeps me in shape for long swims.

It´s been a while since I have been training depth for my own sake (teaching depth courses doesnt really count) so it was a very enjoyable experience just to fool around and playing with depth, the darkness, noseclip only, CNF, Mouthfill, FRC, Negative and so on... Really funny and enjoyable! Experimenting, trying out new things, experiencing how it feels, correcting small technical details, increasing level of difficulty - the 3 hours went by in no time.

Before getting onshore I had to check if I could find some crayfish lying around. There werent many, but after 15-20minutes shallow diving I found 2 nice ones!

Indeed a nice way to use a danish summerday!