Freediving is an intriguing sport to outsiders (like me). There’s not a lot to read about it – James Nestor’s Deep is an overview of the sport (to a certain degree), but the rest of the literature is scarce and specialised. Two books – that need to be read in tandem – which you should read if you’re interested in the sport, are The Last Attempt and The Dive. They concern the love affair of Pipin Ferreras and Audrey Mestre, which directly led to the death of Mestre during a “no limits” record attempt.
No limits freediving is a hard to fathom branch of the sport in which the diver descends – rapidly – on a weighted sled, to a specified depth. To ascend, a pressurised cannister of gas inflates a lift bag, bringing the diver back to the surface. Because of the assisted descent and ascent, the divers are able to go far deeper than the other freediving disciplines. Herbert Nitsch holds the men’s record, to 214 metres.
An ESPN documentary about Audrey Mestre, “No Limits”, is now available on Vimeo. It’s 50 minutes long – a considerable time commitment for an online viewing – but fascinating and well structured, and contains ample footage of no limits dive to satisfy your curiosity. Mestre’s record attempt was prompted in part by a dive by Tanya Streeter, who had broken both the men’s and women’s no limits record with a dive to 160 metres in 2002. The contrast between Streeter’s safety preparations and Mestre’s – arranged by their respective husbands is telling. The end of this documentary, covering Mestre’s final dive, is profoundly disturbing – watch with caution. I’ve embedded the video below.
“No Limits” – The Audrey Mestre Documentary from DeeperBlue.com on Vimeo.
