Hi Dears, most of us are unfortunately confined home these days without having the possibility to freedive for fun nor train consistently. The situation in Sharm el Sheikh, even if a little unclear, is not really different. From now on, access to the sea is completely prohibited and to highjack this rule is very complicated and risky. Most of sea access is depending on resorts opening their doors or not... and so, it has resulted that to get in the sea in Sharm el Sheikh had more of a ninja mission than usual leisure. Access to sea out of resorts facilities are rare and often pretty difficult to reach. To be clear, I know only one tiny spot that can be enjoyed safely at high tide.
Before this new rule became settled, I had the opportunity to finally hit the blue and to test my brand new Go N Sea Vertical bifins.
Go N Sea Vertical... 100cm and 4 layers of carbons
To get in the water with the full equipment, meaning buoy and everything, has not been possible and to find buddies to watch over my dives either. I so had to strictly limit the depths of my dives and to watch even more all aspects of my own safety. So I must admit that I could not push my dives beyond strict limits. To make the balance with these restrictions, I decided to dive without weights, with a hoodless 2,5mm wetsuit, in order to improve the needed strength to leave the surface. I'm pretty floaty considering my total lung capacity.
Before to have the chance of diving with these beauties, I had the Go N Sea Darck Blue model. After 3 years of intense service, they brought me with success to national records for Switzerland in both CWT and CWTB, Nice World Championship and Swiss championship podium. I had them, and still have, in their hard version. Considering my size and weight, hard stiffness is the only option... also because I like to have strong feelings in my legs while finning down and up. I so asked Go N Sea for another pair in hard stiffness.
How surprised I was when I received a brand new model, called Vertical... with my ZK initials on it... understand Zemonk Kosho... yeah :) . Definitely longer than the Darck Blue one and with a different shape, I immediately got impressed by how Go N Sea craftswoman Gisele could reduce the thickness of the blades. With 4 layers of different carbons sheets, their reactivity while wiggle them in the air left me an impression of high level hydrotechnology and got me totally thrilled. Mounted on pathos footpockets due to my gigantic feet (Go N Sea also features their own foot pockets), they are 100cm long... enough for using their ability to double undulate while deep diving, saving more energy on the way down or up and reducing the span of legs kicks.
Testing Go N Sea Vertical in the water... at limited depth
My first impression in the water was the tremendous change in their weight compared to my ancient pair. Much lighter, they allowed me to produced more conscious leg movements and to understand the asset of easily using different kicking technique with a technologically improved efficiency. With my first dives, mainly easy cruse speed and sprints to 30m deep, I had this impression that they were to soft compared to the stiffness I was used to. But checking my dive times, I realised that I had won almost 10 seconds on my best times, sometimes even with a blissful rest at the bottom. This, without additional efforts. Obviously I have to get used to their new length and the ease of riding them and also to understand that intense efforts on the finning are actually not needed anymore. Hopefully, I will confirm these feelings with deeper dives once lockdown will be over and access to full competition mode will be on.
Understanding their ability to double undulate, I then got into that hype of using short span finning technique and tried to match my dive times with even less efforts, still on shallow depths due to safety restrictions. It totally did it and, as I said, I definitely need to get used to their improved efficiency and to the fact that getting to a great speed is easy. To me, their stiffness feels more like medium hard than purely hard, but surely and safely my mind grasps that this is totally worthed. I do less efforts, can manage my way to fin with increased diversity in my moves and get easily at the targeted depth. The way back is almost a joke, but many here know that surfacing from 30m is easy, mostly without weights. So more tests to come obviously, but at the present moment I am greatly satisfied by their performances and warmly advice anyone to discover or rediscover the growing excellency of Go N Sea fins.
Choosing Go N Sea is an ethical human choice
Now I would like to add a word about why I chose Go N Sea. While I was still living in the temple I co founded in south of France, I was keen to finally offer myself my first carbon fins. Concerned by ethics and impact of online shopping, I decided to look for a brand that was established closeby. This to avoid delivery costs and kerosene consumption on that process. I found Go N Sea, just 50 kilometers away. You can imagine that one of my first thought was about how good my karma is to profit of such a chance. Passing from cheap plastic fins to carbon ones, the Go N Sea Darck Blue model, was a revolution and gave me the boost I needed to envisage competitions. 3 years later, I had gained more than 40 meters on my deepest dives and despite the many travels and harsh treatment they went through, they were still completely operational.
One day, holding my courage and determination, I asked to Go N Sea if they would sponsor my way to the deep and offer me a pair in order to blast some honorable scores during Nice World Championships. Gisele, the founder, owner and craftswoman behind these fins explained me her tight situation with honesty and sweetness. Refreshing my intuition of having the perfect fins, whenever old and slightly damaged during a trip in Amorgos, I left the idea of going to Nice with new fins and made myself sure that they will make it with me to where I needed to go. And they did! I loved them even more and the confirmation of me having a perfect match was made.
I always loved these fins and always have been convinced that their quality was going beyond the ordinary. Of course you can find fins on the market that could swim you to Mars, empty you wallet to the marrow and force you to score due to the impressive financial investment they represent, but none of these had such a beautiful soul behind it. None of them have that good karma which for me is tremendously important when I need or simply wish to reach an important goal.
Discover the founder, owner and craftswoman behind Go N Sea fins
During Nice Championships, maybe because of friends talking to her or because of the consistent interest I triggered amongst journalists, I don't know, she wished to offer me this new pair I was hoping for. But since I was, just like every athletes, super focused on keeping my mind packed together, we couldn't meet and so I missed this wonderful opportunity. When I contacted Go N Sea again to apologize about missing her visit, she told me she could sell them and made the gift of her revenue to the volunteers that watched over our comfort during World Championship. Once again, I bowed to that compassion and heart openness and felt really happy I could indirectly participated to that act of generosity. The advice and recommendation she transmitted me with her blessings where: take good care of you and remember that, beyond performance, there is an entire world of nature to enjoy underwater. Bow again.
At the present moment, since freediving business is pretty handicapped by the lockdown, Go N Sea is sewing masks for the needy and getting involved into these human actions we can hopefully observe here and there. I am blown by bliss when I witness such heartful state of mind and would never insist enough on how lucky we all are to share this dimension with such people.
In conclusion, not only the brand new Vertical model of Go N Sea is impressively efficient thank to the recently achieved 4 carbons layers that her blades are made of, lighter, more reactive and able to double undulate, but also the soul of their creator is an authentic heartful compassionate human being and an example of selflessness. Therefore, I sincerely advice these fins as being the best ones. Efficiency, fair price and good karma. Visit Go N Sea website and discover the impressive choice of fins that are available. I'm convinced you too will find your perfect match.
https://www.facebook.com/gonsea.fr Stay safe, stay deep and act good
Blessings and love from Sharm el Sheikh