Santa's Underwater Parade

With the festive season just around the corner, World Record Diving Malta is planning yet another fund-raising event: Santa’s Underwater Parade 2013!

WRDMalta organised a voting poll, during which the club’s team members nominated each other to dress as various characters related to Christmas. The team will be wearing these costumes during a scuba parade planned for Sunday 22^nd December 2013.

WRDMalta would like to invite all divers to come along and participate in the event, as well as any non-divers should they wish to tag along for a laugh. A minimum donation of €5.00 is encouraged, proceeds of which will be donated to L-Istrina 2013. All participants are required to turn up in fancy dress related to Christmas in order to take part in the dive parade. Prizes will be awarded to those voted ‘Best Dressed’ and ‘Best Effort’ as well as raffle prizes courtesy of our sponsors.

The event will take place in Cirkewwa, meeting at 10.00am. Mince pies & Christmas cookies will be available for purchase during the day courtesy of Mik's Cakes & Bakes, proceeds of which will also be donated to L-Istrina.

Let’s make this dive a jolly one! We hope to see you there!!!

For more information contact us on worldrecorddivingmalta@gmail.com

New Guinness World Record Achieved

World Record Diving Malta’s lead diver Sean McGahern set a new world record for the Longest Warm Water Scuba Dive by spending 49 hours and 56 minutes underwater in aid of the charity Inspire which provides therapeutic, education and leisure services to disabled adults and children. The event took place between the 3^rd and 5^th of October in collaboration with Starfish Diving School and the Corinthia Hotel - St. George’s Bay, Malta. Sean was accompanied and assisted by the World Record Diving Malta team and the St. John’s Rescue Corps who both performed outstandingly throughout the entire event.

Despite suddenly being hit by strong winds, currents, surge and 1 metre waves only 5 hours into the dive, Sean and the team were not at all downhearted and accepted this as an even bigger challenge, working strongly together to get safety divers in and out of the water safely.

Perhaps hard to believe, Sean did in fact eat, drink and sleep during his time underwater. Sean ate various types of food including grapes, chocolate bars, cup-a-soup as well as sausages and eggs for breakfast. Safety divers entered the water on shift rotation every hour, bringing down food and drink to Sean and retrieving expelled cylinders. The team also assisted Sean to clean up the seabed from any debris they could find, which was collected and brought up to the surface by the divers in order to raise environmental awareness.

Sean was ecstatic by the number of visitors who turned up to surprise him on the seabed some of which included special guests from Apeks, Aqualung, Whites & Premier Diving Equipment, his DiveMaster instructor Mr Patrik Engstrom and renowned sidemount instructor and cave explorer Mr Garry Dallas.

As the sun rose over St.George’s Bay on Saturday morning, so did the new world record holder Sean McGahern, exhausted yet ecstatic! Sean joked and smiled as he was assisted by the dive team and St John’s rescue corps out of the water and accompanied to hospital for routine checks, following which Sean spent the rest of the weekend celebrating!

Less than a week later Sean was already back at Starfish Diving School teaching. When told to take some time off work to rest he expressed “I need to come back to work please, I’m starting to feel homesick without the fish!”

Sean would like to say a massive thank you to all those involved in the event for helping him accomplish his goal and would like to encourage everyone to contribute by donating to Inspire. For more information visit www.worldrecorddivingmalta.blogspot.com

New World Record Holder

Sean has just beat the Guinness World Record at 48 hours 8 minutes and 17 seconds!!!! Congratulations Sean you have done us so proud!!! Everybody is BUZZZINGGGG on the surface!!

Sean has had a goodnights sleep and the team were in fits of laughter hearing him snoring underwater – possibily a new record he could submit for loudest snore in water?

We are all so proud of Sean for his persistence throughout the past 3 days!!! Well done Sean you are AMAZING!! You have proved the WRD Motto right "Bringing Recreational and Competition Diving to the next level!"

Special thanks to all the sponsors involved namely Starfish Diving School, Corinthia Hotel St. George’s Bay, Marina Hotel Corinthia Beach Resort, Premier Diving Equipment, Thermalution, M&A Diving Supplies, Apeks, Aqualung and Whites Drysuits.HUGE thanks to the safety team and St.John's Rescue Corps for their outstanding performance throughout the whole weekend!!!! 

Stay tuned!!!!!

Beats Personal Best!

With less than 20 hours to go, Sean has proudly beat his personal best of 36 hours and is over the moon about it!! Divers continue to head out to him on shift rotation by the hour and are doing a marvelous job at keeping Sean in high spirits. Well done to the team for bringing up loads of bottles and other bits of debris from the seabed this afternoon.

His fiancée Mikaela kept him company for some time earlier today and she did manage to make him chuckle quite a bit! She spent quite a while forwarding messages to Sean from all the viewers, he says a big thank you to all for the messages and support and continues to encourage you all to donate to Inspire!

Sean has spent a lot of time napping today – lucky for some!!! He has also had some dinner and grapes tonight. Although still quite windy in the bay with a bit of current, Sean is determined to carry on to reach his final goal!

Weather permitting tomorrow, we do encourage people to come down and attend the demo-weekend, participate in try dives (for non-divers) and greet Sean back to land on his exit from the water! We can’t wait to see you on land again Sean – keep it up you’ve impressed many today!! 

Half Way There!!!

Coming up to 30 hours underwater, Sean has reached the half way mark!!! Well done Sean you’ve made it up the top of the hill, time to start coming back down again ;)!

All ok here on land, many of the divers are getting some rest and catching up on some much needed sleep, while others are returning on shift. Premier Diving Equipment representatives are having a blast and seem to be very impressed by Sean’s persistence.

At this point I’d like say a huge well done and thank you to our  land/dive team and sponsors/guests for the amazing performance yesterday when we were suddenly hit by 1 metre waves. You were all outstanding and pushed yourselves as best you could and Sean would not still be under if it wasn’t for all of you! On his behalf, I’d like to cheekily say that he owes you all a beer ;) 

A Day Underwater!

Sean and the team have taken on the battle against the weather in full force with admirable enthusiasm and extreme 'can-do' attitude! Seems the weather is finally giving in and the wind and waves have started to calm down! 

Sean is still content at his base camp and has been asleep for a while now on his sun bed, getting some well needed rest before tomorrow's big clean up! At the moment, apart from WRD safety divers, Sean is also being watched over by Rachael Bell and Paddy Green from Premier Diving Equipment. Hats off to Rachael who is on her first ever night dive!! What a great opportunity to give it a try - Sean will be delighted!! 

Just a few more hours of darkness until the suns rays shine down on the seabed - we are sure this will be quite a rewarding feeling for Sean! Well done Sean we are all very proud of you and well done team who have been outstanding!!! 

The demo-weekend tomorrow will be open from 10am, weather permitting. Any divers wishing to join in and help with the clean up are more than welcome to do so. 

For those of you who were not watching the live stream yesterday, Sean sent a message on screen saying "Donate to Inspire" !!! - Let's do our best to meet his requests ;) Donate now direct via www.inspire.org.mt

A Quarter of the Way

Updates from the jetty! Apologies for the delay but wifey decided to pay Sean a not-so-quick visit on the sea bed and have only just warmed up and returned to IT Support! 

After being struck by horrific weather this afternoon which does not seem to want to improve, the team have accepted the challenge with even greater enthusiasm and are ready for an epic win!

Despite the very limited visibility, Sean has managed to collect several glass bottles and other debris and is forming a little heap by base camp to bring out of the water once the waves have calmed down. Sean made some new friends at base camp including a sea horse, octopus and pipefish. 

The team, jolly as ever, have relocated land support to higher levels and are happily watching Sean who is fast asleep on his sunbed for night.

Sean has eaten several random items – however the strangest food he has asked for this evening was Sausages for dinner. These have been sent down – not sure if they’ll go down a treat.

Even though the weather is not in our favour, the team will continue to fight as long as you continue to donate. Donate to Inspire by following the link: www.inspire.org.mt

Well done Sean – you’re a quarter of a way there – and we will be behind you the rest of the way!

Follow Sean’s progress on www.ustre.am/15sNE, www.instagram.com/corinthiasg and www.twitter.com/corinthiasg