On December 24, the Ohrid woman Simona Trpovska descended to 102 meters in the depths of the Red Sea in Egypt, which is a Macedonian record in technical diving. For the feat, this young successful lady intensively prepared for a year, in which she was helped by an experienced instructor from Egypt, who is also the owner of the world record in deep diving, the "Ohridnews" portal reported.

It took her three and a half minutes to descend to a depth of 102 meters in the Red Sea in Egypt and what is impossible for many, she made possible

"When you reach 102 meters and when you first look up, then you wonder if I will do the return process, because the return process is the most important, if I will return properly. Somehow you push your own limits, you overcome your insecurities" - says Simona.

This is how Simona Trpovska from Ohrid explains her encounter with the depths of the Red Sea in Egypt, when on December 24th of last year, she managed to descend to a depth of 102 meters. She stayed there for about ten minutes.

"The descent is 20 meters per minute going down, but since I had dives before, in three and a half minutes I was already at 102 meters. I felt completely conscious at 102 meters, calm and composed. There was silence around me at 102 meters. It was quiet and peaceful," says Simona.

The return trip took about an hour.

Although she is a consultant for EU funding by profession, diving in the sea and lake depths is her love. It is a special lifestyle, he says, which requires many sacrifices from everyday life activities.

"That meant preparations every day, training, a certain way of eating, going to bed early, getting up early, giving up other activities. Consuming alcohol, even in some normal amounts, a glass or two, is not allowed before diving. You cannot practice any other sport before diving. You can't even after diving. The main element of diving is that your body must exchange gases well, because you have too much saturation of the gases themselves," explains Trpovska.

She is the first Macedonian woman who managed to do this challenge and one of the few in the world. She prepared for it for a year, and an instructor from Egypt helped her.

"The percentage of women who play this sport is still small. But I would encourage them because it's an interesting sport and I think that women also have the capacity, because it also requires mental preparation and control, and I think that the female population naturally has that as a characteristic," says Simona.

Her love for diving was born in Lake Ohrid, where she learned her first steps and where she still does it with love.

A diving trip in the Philippines left the biggest impression on her.

“There is Malapascua Island. There is a type of shark there, which is very rare to see in one place constantly. And they come to that small island non-stop, because they have a filter station and at great depths of 60 meters you can see them every day. If you want to see them during the day, you have to go with technical diving. And you stay longer. They come to you and are not dangerous", our diver tells us.

Her wish is that the next depths she will reach will be greater than 102 meters.