Freediving, An Adventure Worth Living – A Poem

Life surrounded by nature is something I was raised to embrace. Growing up in a country town in the middle of nowhere encouraged me to open my eyes and heart to the natural world, and make up my own mind for adventure.

I see life in challenges, in adventures far and wide. Freediving helps me interpret and connect with the natural world. It’s a simple act that always keeps a smile on my face.

Up until, well, recently, I never set out to become anything or anyone in particular, only to live free and adventurously, pushing the limits of my experience underwater in a quest for depth, with passion!! Still all of it means something special to me, same as almost anyone with dreams.

I am magnetized to the glassy flat, deep sea terrains designed for a freediver to challenge. This is where my heart lies, as I pay tribute to that magic through experiencing ocean depths on a single breath. Sustaining increasing pressure, hypoxia, the build-up of CO2 on every dive both a blessing and a curse which I relish in.

I strive to dive deep and then to document it the way I feel it in the sea. Freediving it’s just a strange skill to develop, only achievable through time spent not breathing and time spent underwater in various aquatic places around the world, most time learning in the water.

Freediving down to depth in the sea amongst a strong current, in ocean swells, or choppy waves you’ll always learn something it’s been a life long classroom teacher in a way, and hopefully will always be. Deep in dark depths, that deep feeling of peace and humility burns away at me, feeling so small in world so vast.

Silky rippling waters with a line extended disappearing down into depths of dark blue. Taunting from a comfortable world of air, ignite my drive for adventure, conveying some divine spark. Whisper the possibilities, conjure the situations I thrive to experience.

I take some hits in the process; lung squeezes, over-training, chest pain, sinus squeezes, getting snagged on something down at depth and lmc pre-blackouts more than two dozen or so, and that was just in the last couple of years.

Still always look forward to getting into the water, although it’s cold where I am now, the cold creeps into your core, and my uncovered face freezing, icier with every passing thermocline, driving you mad, meter after meter mumbling to yourself as you try to relax and not give in to turning to rush anxiously back to the surface.

Freedivers I think we feel it’s an artform underwater as we dive and face our biggest fears within ourselves, silent adventurers of the ocean depths. Most people don’t know what it is I do, nor why or how I do it.

I never want to take my life for granted, so I try to keep motivations simple, real and positive. It’s always an adventure worth living, even if there’s no future in it, it’s a present worth remembering.

For waves of gratitude and ebbs and flows of happiness, for everything that brought me to that point in life, to that moment in time to do something worth remembering with a story or a feeling. I feel genuinely lucky to put my hand on my heart to say I’ll always love what I did and I still love what I do, even if I can’t be underwater as often these days. And still I’ll probably never be rich but while I’m still around, I’ll certainly have some tales for my nieces and nephews, and I like the thought of that.

Photo by Daan Verhoeven.