Less than 7 Hours to Go!!!

Wow - what a busy couple of days it's been! The team have been super busy at the dive site all week being as creative as ever! Thank you to all those involved and who contributed to get everything prepared in time for the big day!

Banners set up underwater, banners on land, marker buoys and lines in place, CCTV and live stream running, all divers & guests in Malta, time for Sean to relax in the Corinthia Hotel St.George's Bay Apollo Spa before it's time for his dip! 

Sean will be entering the water at 5am tomorrow morning accompanied by the WRDMalta safety diver team and will start off his challenge in water deeper than 11 metres. Later on during the day Sean will move to base camp where the live CCTV will be set up! To follow the live stream kindly visit: http://ustre.am/15sNE -The stream will go live at 5am! 

Apart from the live stream and blog you can keep track of Sean's progress and monitor his whereabouts by visiting the following pages: 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/worldrecorddiving

Twitter: https://twitter.com/corinthiasg

Instagram: http://instagram.com/corinthiasg

The demo-weekend with guest exhibitors Apeks, Aqualung, Whites, PDE & Thermalution will take place on Thursday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm. 3-Day Admission tickets cost 10€ per person, giving guests access to the demo and try out top of the range kit and gear. Visitors will also have the chance to take part in our raffle to win some awesome prizes and non-divers will be given the opportunity to take part in a happy hour of free try dives everyday! 

The team would like to welcome any divers to come down and help clean the sea bed of any debris in order to raise environmental awareness and promote marine conservation. 

All proceeds will be donated to the local charity INSPIRE (VO/0199). WRDMalta would like to encourage donations to Inspire which may be done by following the link https://pg.alert.com.mt/inspire/

The team would like to wish Sean the best of luck for his 60 hour challenge! 

Stay tuned .... 

All for a Good Cause: In Aid of Inspire!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks but hard work pays off and everything seems to be all-set for the upcoming 60 Hour World Record Challenge & Scuba Demo-Weekend in 3 weeks! The teams getting super hyped up now and we are really looking forward to greeting our guest exhibitors here in Malta- it’s going to be a great fun filled weekend all round!

During the record challenge for the Longest Warm Open Water Scuba Dive, World Record Diving Malta will be hosting a Scuba Demo-Weekend in collaboration with Corinthia Hotel St. George's Bay and Marina Hotel Corinthia Beach Resort. Guest exhibitors comprising of leading international enterprises within the scuba community, will be setting up stands on site, giving visitors the opportunity to try out some of the latest gear available on the market and the chance to win some amazing prizes!!! 

Exhibitors include: 

- M&A Diving Supplies 

- Apeks

- Aqualung 

- Whites Drysuits 

- Premier Diving Equipment 

- Thermalution 

Special Guest: 

- Garry Dallas from Simply Sidemount with Garry Dallas / Apeks Cave Exploration Team 

This event will take place on the 3rd, 4th and 5th October in collaboration with Starfish Diving School & the Malta St. John's Rescue Corps. 3-day admission tickets (€10.00) are available to purchase from Starfish Diving School & Henry J Bean's at Corinthia Hotel St. George's Bay as from Monday 16th September. A happy-hour of free try-dives will take place everyday giving visitors the opportunity to get in the water and see what all the scuba fuss is about (term & conditions apply). Moreover, we have some amazing prizes to be won by raffle courtesy of our sponsors! 

In order to raise environmental awareness and promote marine conservation, Sean and the team will spend most of their time underwater cleaning-up the sea bed from any debris which has not yet developed into a home to any marine life. We encourage fellow divers to come along and help with the beach clean - the more the merrier ofcourse! Those interested are kindly requested to contact us on worldrecorddivingmalta@gmail.com for more details. 

Finally, at World Record Diving Malta we do not only base our events on physical challenges but also on charitable goals. For this reason, all proceeds will be donated to the local charity INSPIRE (vo/0199). World Record Diving Malta would like to encourage donations to INSPIRE. This can be done by direct bank transport to 'The Eden and Razzett Foundation' - Account number: 40017862343.

About Inspire 

The Foundation for Inclusion is the creation of two leading NGO's working in the disability sector in Malta and Gozo. The Eden Foundation and the Razzett tal-Hbiberija joined forces to help over 1000 children and adults with learning and physical disabilities across 5 centres. 

"Our vision remains to see complete inclusion and understand the needs of our clients by working closely with families, carers, the state and other NGO's and the community. The children and adults we help depend on us to ensure that there is help and support at hand to assist them in their day to day lives. Through Inspire we can help people with disabilities achieve greater potential. Inspire depends on voluntary contributions, without support we would not be able to survive. We strive to use our funds in the most cost effective and efficient manner possible. This is beneficial to the future development of our facilities". 

Training & more training!

It's been a busy couple of weeks on our end with preparation for the upcoming 60 hour dive challenge, but we are enjoying every moment of it!

Training for the longest scuba dive in warm water has begun with dives taking place regularly as we build up to the day of the event. The first of thestraining dives took place on the 27th of July during which Sean was submerged for 5 hours accompanied by various members of the dive team. During their time underwater the team had a great time trying out their new Thermulation heated undersuits courtesy of Premier Diving Equipment. These kept everyone quite snug throughout the training dive. To top it off the team were delighted to have a spectator watching their every more; an adorable seahorse. 

The main scope behind these training dives is for the team to be able to test out the new sponsored kit so as to ensure that all team members are comfortable with the configurations they have chosen to use during the record event. With that being said, we would like to say a massive thank you to M&A Diving Supplies, who on behalf of Apeks, Aqualung and Whites Drysuits, have supported us for many consecutive years now, as well as to Thermulation and Premier Diving Equipment who have recently hopped on board in supporting our events. Sean and the team are extremely content with all the kit being provided by these leading international companies and strongly recommend these products to all divers. To find out more on which products will be used during out event kindly visit the following pages: 

http://worldrecorddivingmalta.blogspot.com/2013_02_01_archive.html

http://worldrecorddivingmalta.blogspot.com/2013/07/pde-thermulation-new-sponsor-for-2013.html

Thanks once again to the above companies from all of us at World Record Diving Malta! 

These training dives also serve for Sean and the team to build up their stamina in preparation for the 60 hour challenge. For this reason, the duration time spent underwater is increased for every training sessions. The next training dive will take place on Sunday 18th August at Starfish Diving School. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks!

PDE & Thermulation - new sponsor for 2013!

World Record Diving Malta is proud to announce Premier Diving Equipment as our latest sponsor for the upcoming Warm Water 60 Hour Dive Challenge in partnership with Thermulation's heated vest.

About Thermalution

Petatech ® International Co. Ltd was established in 1996 specialising in the manufacture of a non-metallic heating element: ThermalTek®. Being pioneers in this field Petatech have successfully developed portable power heating products for domestic, medical, health care, underwater and outdoor purposes. Thermalution® is their latest innovation to take the water sports market by storm.

About Premier Diving Equipment 

PDE was launched at the London International Dive Show in March 2011 bringing some must have products for Scuba Diving and water sports to the UK market. Thermalution® has fast become their most sought after product, turning any wet or dry suit into a heated one and bringing warmth to your underwater adventures!

PDE & Thermulation® will be providing the World Record Diving Malta Team some awesome new toys to play with, namely the new wireless Heated Under-suit for Wet-suits and for Dry-suits. The Thermulation® Power Heated Undersuit is the world’s first of its kind. The philosophy behind the brand is to bring warmth with style: “Fashion + Function = Thermulation®”.

These under-suits are slim, durable and weigh a mere 700g allowing you to have maximum flexibility and agility underwater whilst being lightweight at the same time. They are powered by two Lithium Polymer 7.4V batteries. These are the same batteries found in your mobile phone or mp3 player: no danger of radiation, electric shock or explosion. They are compact and lightweight; a set consists of two 130g batteries. The battery pockets are positioned outside of the under-suit at the sides of the chest, under the arms, offering maximum freedom of movement.

Characteristics of Heated Under-suit for Dry-suits

• Suitable for wearing beneath wetsuits and dry-suits up to depths of 100 metres.
• The wireless temperature micro-controller wristband has an on/off switch   with three temperature settings allowing you to adjust the temperature of the thermal layer even underwater!!
• Built in microchip within controller providing extra stability for temperature control.
• Non- metallic heating panel positioned on the back to warm up your core area.
• Heat lasting 180- 240 minutes (depending on temperature setting).

Characteristics of Heated Under-suit for Wetsuits

• Suitable for wearing beneath wetsuits up to depths of  70 metres
• The temperature micro-controller with on/off switch has three temperature settings and light indication. The controller is on a stretchable cable that feeds though the neck/hood of your wetsuit so temperature can be controlled under water.
•  Built in microchip within controller providing extra stability for temperature control.
•  Non- metallic heating panel positioned on the back to warm up your core area.
•  Heat lasting 100-140 minutes (depending on temperature setting).

PDE will also be providing the team with Innobeam torches. Innobeam specialise in the advanced design and manufacture of portable lights and torches, meeting the demand of a wide range of consumers including divers. These torches encompass multiple functionality; with high, medium, low and blinking settings. Lasting up to 20 hours these torches will be extremely useful to the WRDMalta team bearing in mind that we plan to remain below the surface for a total of 60 hours.  

Lastly, PDE will be supplying the team with Gearmarker – extremely useful and efficient for us, having a team of around 25 divers getting in and out of the water during the event. Gearmarker is a 3d paint that is flexible once dry. It is ideal for marking and personalising items such as wetsuits, weight belts, bags, etc. It may also be used for slick, smooth surfaces like on masks and fins. Gearmarker is non-toxic, completely waterproof and stands proud on any surface. What a fantastic innovation!

“Having met Sean and some of the Malta World Record Diving Team at the London International Dive show in March 2013, it soon became clear that Thermalution would be the perfect product to support Sean and his team of support divers through their next challenge – 60hrs continuous diving! We’re delighted to be supporting Sean and his team. Good luck to all the team from all of us here at PDE!”

For more information kindly visit: visit www.pdeuk.com / www.thermalution.com or contact Ms Rachael Bell on rachael.bell@pguk.net

What's Next?

Over the past few years WRDMalta has organized a series of world record breaking dive events based on saturation and endurance diving for which we have received record achievements and recognition both by Guinness World Records as well as by the Malta National Records Office. However, the WRDMalta team strongly believes that “you are only as good as your last game”, therefore we always strive to improve our achievements and exceed further.

For this reason we are not only planning to break our own personal record of 36 hours underwater without breaking the surface, but we are also aiming at breaking the Guinness World Record for the longest warm water dive (48 hours 8 minutes & 17 seconds), whilst pushing the benchmark further to a 60 hour total dive time.  This event will take place on the 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th October in collaboration with Starfish Diving School, the Corinthia  Hotel - St.George's Bay and The Marina Hotel - Corinthia Beach Resort.

Throughout the record event, our lead diver Sean McGahern will be submerged for a duration of 60 hours during which he will be accompanied by the World Record Diving Malta safety diver team as well as by a number of divers from the St. John’s Rescue team. The divers will spend a large amount of their time underwater doing a clean-up of the sea bed (collecting any debris which has not yet developed into a home to any marine life) as a means of promoting environmental awareness. We would like to wish a big welcome to all the new divers who have joined the team for the upcoming event - it's great to have you on board!

Apart from team meetings and training which will begin shortly, we are currently super busy working very closely with our above mentioned sponsors as well as Apeks, Aqualung, Whites Drysuits and M&A Diving Supplies (who have constantly shown extreme support during our past events) in order to organize this event and bring something innovative, new and exciting to the table for Malta. More details to follow in the not so distant future!!

Finally, World Record Diving Malta is ecstatic to announce our new sponsor for 2013: PREMIER DIVING EQUIPMENT in partnership with THERMALUTION. Welcome on board from all of us at World Record Diving Malta!!

A New Game to Play!

One of the main values at World Record Diving Malta is Innovation - that is, striving to develop new ideas in bringing the diving community together for fun events and team building activities. Bearing in mind that our scuba diving events are generally organized for divers with a minimum Advanced Open Water certification requirement, we agreed that it would be interesting to organize something different for even entry level divers and beginners as well as family and friends to be able to participate in. So what did we come up with? The Scuba Pub Quiz!!

We will be organizing a number of these over the coming months and anyone is welcome to join in and play, even non- divers should you wish to. As many of you know, World Record Diving Malta is not only about physical challenges in relation to scuba diving, but we also strive to promote a charitable goal. For this reason, all proceeds received from our pub quizzes will be donated to various local charities around the Maltese islands.

The first Scuba Pub Quiz will take place on Friday 19^th July at the one and only, the place to be, Del Piero’s Bar in Birzebbugia. What better way of bringing the local and foreign divers together than a scuba topic quiz + lots and lots of beer? (as long as none of you are planning a night dive afterwards!) Free snacks and nibbles will be presented during the event as well as GREAT OFFERS on drinks and finally WICKED PRIZES! 

The entry fee for this event is 5€ per person (tables of 4), all proceeds of which will be donated to the St. Patrick’s Residential Children Services. Places are limited so should you be interested in taking part in our quiz then please feel free to contact Mikaela on worldrecorddivingmalta@gmail.com or call on +356 79093456. 

Treasure Island - A Blast of a Day!

On the 16^th of June, teams of local and foreign divers once again set out on a journey around some of Malta’s most popular dive sites and faced a number of obstacles and challenges whilst in search of several buried treasures.

The competing teams were given a booklet from which they had to solve a number of riddles in order to arrive at various check points around the islands. Teams were spotted searching for clues wearing full scuba kit in some of Malta’s best tourist attractions such as Popeye Village, the Malta Bird Park, the Upper Barakka Gardens and the Marsascala Family Park and admittedly this was quite fun to watch. Once the clues and riddles hidden at the various check points were found and solved, team members then had to journey across the island to dive sites such as Zonqor Point, Scorpion Cave and HMS Maori in order to retrieve the hidden treasures.

Along the way the participating members also had to participate in a photo challenge by providing a number of photographs performing stunts underwater. Teams were seen swimming along in pyjamas, eating traditional Maltese pastizzi underwater, playing musical instruments underwater and having a picnic underwater. Moreover, teams were also spotted posing in water features, on the traditional Maltese Karozzin as well as on a Luzzu.

This was the second edition of Treasure Island and once again the team received excellent feedback from the participating teams. “What a great way to bring the diving community together - highly recommended to any divers” and “we can’t wait to see what's in store for the next one” were a few of the comments received at the end of the day. The Take the Plunge edition was definitely bigger and tougher than the last but the teams showed extreme effort and great enthusiasm throughout the entire event especially when dancing the ‘Gangnam Style’ with Olive Oil at Popeye Village (Video at the bottom of page).

World Record Diving Malta would like to say a huge thanks to all those who participated in our event and thank you for helping us with our donation to the local voluntary organization the St.John’s Rescue Corps. A huge well done goes out to Team DiveMed, the twice-in-a-row winning team for Treasure Island. Congrats also to the teams who placed second and third – excellent team spirit everyone – you were great!!!

Finally a huge shout goes out to our sponsors for providing such delightful prizes for the winning teams, namely: The Corinthia St. George Hotel, M&A Diving Supplies Ltd and Henry J Beans Bar & Grill. 

Treasure Island will once again take place towards the end of the dive season- stay tuned if you wish to participate in the next edition for 2013. For more information on our upcoming treasure hunt events kindly visit www.facebook.com/WRDMaltaTreasureIsland.