Sunday, February 12, 2012

“I Was Swimming And…I Just Started Dreaming”

Welcome to the world of freediving. When the divers re-surface, many times they have to be reminded to start breathing again. As in this case:

JUNKO KITAHAMA’S FACE is pale blue, her mouth agape, her head craned back like a dead bird’s. Through her swim mask, her eyes are wide and unblinking, staring at the sun. She isn’t breathing.

‘Blow on her face!’ yells a man swimming next to her. Another man grabs her head from behind and pushes her chin out of the water. ‘Breathe!’ he yells. Someone from the deck of a boat yells for oxygen. ‘Breathe!’ the man repeats. But Kitahama, who just surfaced from a breath-hold dive 180 feet below the surface of the ocean, doesn’t breathe. She doesn’t move. Kitahama looks dead.”

Here’s a video of a freediver flying/falling 130 feet underwater in the Bahamas. Near the end of the video, he climbs up the underwater wall he fell past. It’s stunningly beautiful as well as frightening to think about.

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