The beauty of being first up... Eric Fattah prepares for his warm-up dive of the competition to go through the motions with the tag and gear.

Kerian Hibbs (left) ascending from a too easy 51m no fins dive, and Davide Carrera (right) taking his fresh Italian record 3m deeper to 94m.

Ryuzo Shinomiya came back from yesterday's equalisation problems to edge out his CWT national record to 102m. The water dragon from Okinawa is on his way!

Sara Campbell tore down to 60m in 43 seconds, before entering the glide and cruising to the plate. After 6 seconds on the bottom finding a tag she began an arduous ascent that took her all of 2 minutes (average ascent velocity 0.83m/s).

Approaching the surface she stopped several times, and finally surfaced with a dive time of 3:36.

Applause, screaming, crying and an English dance on the beach. It has been a hard 2 years, but Sara is finally back.

It has been a long time between drinks for Walter Steyn (above left) who today finally broke his own Australian record with a smooth dive to 87m. He currently has the record for the quickest surface protocol - removing his nose clip before reaching the surface, and completing the rest within 3 or 4 seconds of surfacing.

William Winram broke back into the 80's for the first time since 2006, with a Free Immersion dive to 85m. He says he was surprised by the plate, and was able to equalíse on the turn, so we can expect more from him in the coming days.

All photos courtesy of Frederic Buyle (taken i n apnea).

Great Pic's guys and great coverage. Keep it coming. Loving every second of it. Wish I was on Long Island with you all.rnTake it easy. rnNic by Nic Rowan on 2009-04-02 15: 14:30

I agree, great photo's, and very nice story, very happy for Sara and William Winram overcoming their challenges. - Does Sara carrying much lead? sinking like a rock down and getting so slow up? - Ryuzo is also on his way down, but will he able to challenge Guillaume's 113m CWT record in time? - Eric, the dark horse, the first CWT WR holder using a monofin may challenge and surprise us with a Canadian Record or even a WR? - Well I'm exited to keep coming back for the next thrilling day!

by Kars on 2009-04-02 15:46:40

Very nice read, in deed... but what exactley is an english dance?rnAnd why did Herbert and Will not start? Hearing just

the success stories is only half the fun... by Martin M on 2009-04-02 16:07:49