Diver Sean McGahern broke the world record for the longest cold water, open sea dive yesterday after remaining submerged in St George’s Bay for 12 hours and 34 minutes.

The first thing I’m going to do now is have a huge meal of steak and chips

A satisfied Mr McGahern, a 37-year-old professional scuba diving instructor, told The Times the dive went as planned. “Everything went smoothly – it was good.”

Aiming to beat the previous world record of 11 hours and 46 minutes, Mr McGahern entered the water at 11.48 p.m. – three minutes later than he had planned to.

His intention was to stick it out for at least 15 hours and emerge at about 4.20 p.m. but plans changed and, after decompressing for one hour to remove the excess nitrogen from his body, Mr McGahern exited the water about two-and-a-half hours early.

To beat the record, the water temperature must be below 15 degrees Celsius and the diver must remain at a minimum depth of 11 metres. In fact, Mr McGahern said the temperature was a constant 14 degrees.

He managed to nap for 45 minutes at night but whiled away the time clearing up the seabed with the help of his team of support divers. They managed to collect a “truckload” of bottles and other rubbish and piled up 20 tyres and six sunbeds to be collected later this week.

After emerging from the water, the new world record holder was taken to Mater Dei Hospital for a routine check-up and got the all-clear.

“The first thing I’m going to do now is have a huge meal of steak and chips,” he said laughing.

All the data, including the uninterrupted camera footage of the dive, surface cameras and monitors, will be sent to the Malta Records Office and the Guinness World Record Office in London.

And after today? “I’ll start planning the next world record attempt,” he said.

Born in England, raised in Ireland and a resident in Malta for 17 years, Mr McGahern had previously held the warm water open sea dive record. Sponsored by CT Park and Corinthia Marina and San Ġorġ, the dive was a fundraiser for Id-Dar tal-Providenza, a home for the disabled.

People can still donate from www.worldrecorddivingmalta.com.

Mr McGahern had attempted the cold water record before but fell one hour and 10 minutes short of his goal due to bad weather conditions.