![]() Kyra Andrijich swims beside a school of fish at WA’s Ningaloo Reef during a dive. Freedivers report more intimate interactions with marine life than their scuba diving counterparts. In New South Wales, Cabbage Tree Bay in Sydney is popular, while in Western Australia, it’s hard to go past Ningaloo Reef. Other hotspots include Mornington in Victoria, and Queensland’s Lady Elliot Island, North Stradbroke and freshwater Lake Eacham. In SA there’s Rapid Bay and a freshwater sinkhole near Mount Gambier. Lisa says there are a few particularly favoured places around Australia. The community spirit is also strong in recreational freediving, where groups dive together in swimming pools, freshwater lakes or in the ocean. You’ll go to a competition like World Championships or the Pan Pacifics and you’ll see athletes from other countries coaching each other.” “It’s also the community I love the fact that most people are really willing to support everybody else. “What can happen is that the pain signals get ‘stuck on’, and freediving and meditation help turn it down,” she says. ![]() Before she knew it, the club’s community had encouraged her to compete in pool-based competitions and she found herself on the board of the AFA.įor Lisa, freediving and meditation have combined to help her cope with chronic pain. On return to her home in South Australia, she joined her local pool-based freediving club. With many of her usual sports impossible after the injury, Lisa took a freediving course in Bali. “I have a lot of pain and a lot of physical issues that I have to deal with.” “My doctors have said to me they don’t know why I’m walking,” she says. Lisa’s own entry into freediving followed a serious spinal-cord injury in 2008. Other freedivers were previously snorkellers or spearfishers who simply wished to stay underwater longer. Lisa Borg, AFA secretary, explains that many former scuba enthusiasts choose to ditch the bulky equipment, finding the interaction with marine wildlife is enhanced without scuba’s exhaled bubbles. Image credit: Aimee Janįor many, the path to freediving begins with scuba diving. American freediver Rachel Strohl swims beside a whale shark at Ningaloo Reef, WA. Apart from the COVID pause in recording data in 2020, the sport has averaged 40–80 per cent growth annually since 2014. Jody says freediving schools are popping up across the country, and there’s been an exponential increase in people becoming certified freedivers and competing. You get a sense of being suspended in time. “It’s incredibly beautiful and, on top of that, you’re holding your breath, so your heartbeat is slowed. “If you’re on a deep dive in very clear water, you’re surrounded by bright blue and you get these ribbons of light that are just streaming around,” says Jody, who’s also the technical officer of the Australian Freediving Association (AFA), the not-for-profit organisation that promotes freediving in Australia. In a dive time of three minutes and :28 seconds Alenka made history and took her own WR (set a couple of days earlier) ever deeper.Why spend more time underwater on a single breath? It’s partly to do with the sensory experience, says Dr Jody Fisher, an applied mathematician working on interdisciplinary areas, including the physiology of freediving. On day 4 of #VB2021 Alenka Artnik became the first woman to ever reach 120m while freediving under her own propulsion. "Diving felt amazing! Not many men can dive that deep and the number is really crazy! It’s hardcore but I was just following my progress and I knew exactly what to do and it makes me really happy.” She said: "On my ascent I was very focused on technique but at the same time I just seemed to melt into the water. The Slovenian completed the record at Vertical Blue in the Bahamas. In a time of three minutes 28 seconds, Artnik became the first female to reach 120 metres. South Georgia and The South Sandwich IslandsĪlenka Artnik, Slovenia, set a new world record with her 120-metre-deep freedive under her own physical power.
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