I have wanted to try freediving for many years. While it shares many similarities with SCUBA diving, there are aspects unique to freediving that have always piqued my curiosity. I enjoy staying fit and find great satisfaction in pushing myself to improve, whether it’s running longer distances or completing my route in less time. With SCUBA, you can refine your skills, perfect your buoyancy, and educate yourself on the seemingly endless pool of theory and knowledge however, SCUBA isn’t typically a sport where you set tangible goals or train to reach the next milestone. In many ways, this is part of its charm—it’s not at all about competition.
Freediving, on the other hand, offers a different appeal. It introduces a clear sense of progression and achievement: going deeper, holding your breath longer, and continuously striving to improve. This focus on measurable goals gives it a unique, athletic dimension, with a focus on training and fitness, that I’ve always found intriguing.
I started my journey into freediving with Charl Marais of Apnea Addicts in Cape Town, South Africa. Born in Namibia and growing up beside the ocean, Charl has been freediving for decades. He is an expert on the sport and consulted in the development of PADI’s freediving course content and curriculum. So, one could say he has written the book, literally!
Our sessions started in the pool with static apnea, where you hold your breath underwater while staying still. My first attempt was a struggle—I could barely manage to hold my breath for a minute. Charl and his colleague, Brittany, were incredibly supportive. They taught me techniques for a proper breathe-up—a series of exercises to relax both body and mind before a breath-hold. With their guidance, my times began to improve. We also practiced dynamic apnea, finning from one end of the pool to the other on a single breath.
Charl was an exceptional host, not only during training but also in sharing the beauty of Cape Town. He took me on a memorable trip to the wine country, where I learned about South Africa’s famous vineyards through a tour. He was a wealth of knowledge on the local flora and fauna too.
After a number of pool sessions, we packed up the car on a Sunday and went to a quarry in Cape Town for an open-water session. It was raining very heavily, a cold and grey day. The weather was too wet to do anything but get in the water and I was so happy to be there, otherwise I would be inside, reading a book on the couch or watching television. As a group we got in the water and made our way to center of the quarry, easily propelled by the freediving fins, gentle kicks moving us swiftly through the water. Our voices echoing off the rocks high around us, the rain drizzling down.
Charl and Brittany set up lines under the water with a float at the top, to begin vertical depth training. With this new format, new techniques were introduced, like the tumble turn, used to pivot back toward the surface after reaching depth. This session was my opportunity to bring together everything I’d practiced: the breathe-up, the duck dive to invert myself, finning technique, and breath-holding.
At first, I struggled. My SCUBA habits, ingrained through years of diving, often crept back in. I found I began to forget things, or reverting to the autopilot techniques I have from SCUBA diving. For instance, as a SCUBA diver, I’ve been taught to equalize “early and often” before feeling discomfort. But in freediving, what qualifies as “early” in SCUBA is far too late. Freediving requires virtually immediate equalization as you invert and descend quickly.
With practice, I began to get a better grip of it, and started to be able to enjoy the sensation and experience of the dive, rather than being solely focused on the technicalities. In the quarry, I was able to achieve a 23 meter vertical dive, returning to the surface on the one breath. It was like nothing I had experienced before. At about 16 meters, I no longer had to kick, but entered a weightless freefall. My body sank like an arrow down the line, into the darkness, the cloud covered skies and high rocks surrounding the quarry making this depth seem almost black. Although I was pushing myself and my body, I felt very peaceful in that moment, alone in the lightless water.
The open cell neoprene suit, warm on the surface, and slick against my skin, was at depth compressed and thin. I felt a cold shudder as I tumbled turned at the bottom of the line. Quickly, the water got warmer and brighter with every kick of my fins as I made my way up the line. Now feeling an uncomfortable and restless need to breathe, the expanding light welcoming me to the surface consoled the urge.
Back to the surface of the water, I draped myself over the float and breathed in and out, controlled. Then Charl and I celebrated with a smile and a high-five. I had an enormous sense of achievement and immediately understood the appeal of this sport, the spell it seems to cast on so many people- their insatiable pursuit to go deeper. I was blown away to reach a static breath hold of 3 minutes 45 seconds, and to be able to obtain my PADI Advanced Freediver ticket. I’m excited to see where else it will take me!
Whilst in Cape Town, Charl put me in touch with Dr. Sara Andreotti, a shark researcher and co-inventor of the Shark Safe Barrier. It was a pleasure to meet with Sara, and she kindly agreed to an interview. We set up a makeshift studio in the back of the Dive Team diving center and school to have our chat, and I’m delighted to share the conversation with you via my new podcast Maritime Radio: https://open.spotify.com/show/60miI4qrAg3KqiZWHD0OlK?si=d5aa66723303483a
My sincere thanks to Charl and Brittany for being such wonderful hosts and friends in Cape Town, and for all of their time and training. Thank you to Dr. Sara Andreotti for her generosity. My sincere thanks to the Our World Underwater Scholarship Society for giving me this opportunity, alongside Forth Element, SUUNTO, Aqualung, Apex, GoPro, and DAN for their support and sponsorship.
