Become a Freediver
Experience Magic

I’ve been a freediver pretty much my whole life. I was breath-hold diving long before I knew there was a name for it.

From the first time I got into a swimming pool I was more comfortable underwater than I was at the surface. Unless you’ve actually experienced the joys of freediving it’s hard to explain the appeal. Most people I know really can’t understand why on earth I would want to hold my breath for minutes at a time, and swim around underwater. But I can honestly say that some of the most freeing and blissful moments of my life have been underwater. Is it safe? In a word, yes. But you do need to know your own limitations and not push beyond them. I feel much safer freediving than I do riding my bicycle in a busy town and, in truth, I probably am.

Freediving

What does it take to be a freediver?

You need a good buddy and you need to be a good buddy too. And never dive alone.

There’s far more to being a freediver than just leaping into the water, taking a deep breath and duck diving into the depths.

At the risk of being a total hypocrite, I’m going to recommend that you do at least an introductory course in freediving before you hit the water. I admit that I have never had any training, but I have read many books on the subject.

Reading can never take the place of a good instructor and I do intend to do a course as soon as I can find the time. Of course, I’ll let you know how it goes once I’ve done it.

We’ve listed a couple of agencies you can train with in the right hand column of this page if you’d like to do a course.

Why would I want to hold my breath when I could scuba dive?

As I said, unless you’ve experienced it for yourself, the magic is hard to explain. I love scuba for the freedom it gives you to stay down for much longer but, somehow, all of that equipment seems to create a barrier between you and the environment.

My last freedive was in glorious 40m visibility in Zakynthos. We didn’t see any sharks, but we had an amazing experience with a loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta). It swam with us for ages, surfacing with us and diving back down again.

I’m planning to to the AIDA** course before my next ocean dive. It will be my first ever dive in a quarry, which will be very different and, hopefully, I’ll learn a lot.

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