Plunging to the depths of sport

EXTREM SPORTS/Focus on free diving: "Free diving" is on the outer limits of the extreme sport experience. But, as Keith Duggan writes, sometimes pushing the envelope can have tragic consequences

One of the unusual aspects of Audrey Mestre's record attempt was the number of media people around. ike most other days in the Dominican Republic, October 12th was sun-kissed and heavenly and panoramic. The Miami and international press posse were there to catch some rays and write juicy colour pieces on this happy chapter in the extreme sports bible that is quietly eclipsing the meaning that conventional sports have on people's lives.

At 230 feet, the pressure is strong enough to crush a Coca

Cola tin. The lungs constrict to one eighth of their capacity and the heart rate drops

dramatically, redirecting the blood flow from the legs

and arms to more vital areas. It hurts.

Mestre glided further and further down, almost 150 feet below

the level where the Kursk submarine lay stricken.

Free Diving:

A brief history

Although the activity of deep

sea diving without the aid of a breathing apparatus has been traced back to

4500 BC, it only gained a competitive edge in this century, with record

depths recorded and subsequently beaten.

The French-based Association International for the Development of

Apnea (AIDA), the biggest free diving association, was set up in the 1990s

and the free diving championships were inaugurated in 1996. Apnea

translates literally as breathlessness and all the free diving strands are based on holding one's breath.

There are two kinds of free diving; constant

ballast and no limits. The former is by far the most

popular and is for most practitioners recreational as opposed to

competitive. No limits is based on plunging to extreme depths with the aid

of a line-held weighted sleigh. The current record stands at over

530 feet. Only a handful of people have free-dived to

depths beyond 500 feet.

Photogenic and of a pleasant nature but teak tough, Mestre was at the cutting edge of her own particular discipline: "no limits free diving". Taking a deep breath, she would take hold of the rear of a 200lb sled and descend steadily through the tropical azure surface to the deeper blues and eerie black of the ocean.

Her target depth was 558 feet, a world record, a new low in a pursuit that can be traced back to the Mesopotamians who plunged to the seabed in search of pearls. The jewels Mestre sought were more esoteric; they were purely to be the first to reach the deepest waters, to be the Edmund Hillary of a parallel universe.

After she reached her depth, she would inflate a large balloon that would ferry her back towards oxygen on the surface of the sea.

Three minutes into Mestre's attempt, Paul Kotik, a staff writer for the DeeperBlue.net website, had a serious premonition that something was wrong. Unlike most media observers, he was a keen free diver and grew anxious when it appeared the French woman's ascent was delayed.

"He likened it to one of the football disasters when the stretchers appear but nobody realises anything is wrong," said Stephan Whelan, editor of the web magazine. "People were laughing and joking and didn't fully grasp the enormity of the situation."

It took nine minutes and 44 seconds for Mestre to surface again. Efforts to resuscitate her were fruitless. Her dying moments were stark and terrible. She was reportedly foaming at the mouth and bleeding.

Her husband, Francesco "Pipin" Ferreras, himself a world champion free diver, was among the team of scuba divers who monitored the record attempt for safety purposes. He had met Mestre through the sport and they were inseparable.

Within hours, word of the tragedy had flashed around the global free diving community, for whom Mestre was already something of an iconic figure. And, with the big media attendance, her death threw the mainstream spotlight on a pursuit that is a way of life for its practitioners.

"I think that free divers always knew that there would be a death," says diver Cliff Etzel, a photo journalist/writer who trained with Mestre and Pipin last May, "because they were constantly pushing the envelope, constantly redefining the limits of the human body. But nobody expected that the death would occur here and that Audrey would be the victim, because it was so avoidable."

There are little more than a dozen people on earth capable of doing what to Mestre had become second nature. "No Limits" exists on the extreme edge of free diving. Most enthusiasts are content to practise "constant ballast" dives, with fins and a snorkel without the benefits of a rope but within shallower waters, where most of the sea life exists.

No Limits is showier and more dangerous and most exciting. It is about exploring the outer ranges. At 230 feet, the pressure is strong enough to crush a Coca Cola tin. The lungs constrict to one eighth of their capacity and the heart rate drops dramatically, redirecting the blood flow from the legs and arms to more vital areas. It hurts.

Mestre glided further and further down, almost 150 feet below the level where the Kursk submarine lay stricken. It is dark and cold and lonely, but it is far from a foolhardy rush through the ocean. Free divers train with scientific precision to adapt to both the psychological and physical demands of their pursuit.

"There is a theory that it is 95 per cent psychological and just five per cent athletic ability," says Etzel, who is training to become an AIDA (the main free-diving association based in France) instructor after developing a love for the sport.

On the face of it, no limits diving flies in the face of nature, a rapid descent through thousands of tonnes of water while holding one's breath.

Although free diving is as ancient as time, it gained a competitive dimension in the last century, most famously through the friendship and rivalry between the Frenchman Jacques Mayol and the Italian Enzo Majoran in the 1960s.

Luc Besson's 1989 film The Big Blue, loosely based on the obsessions of the two men, presented free diving as a noble and dreamy and fatalistic escape from conventional life.

"The influence of that film is staggering," says Whelan. "I don't know how many people I have met who have told me they basically changed their lives after watching it."

Besson's evocative imagery and haunting soundtrack offers as good an explanation as any for what the draw of free diving is. As with all the extreme sports, the appeal is difficult to articulate. It is hard to use the word peace without sounding like a whacked-out hippy, but that is probably at the core of it: an opportunity of escape, of paring down existence to the bare essential fact of holding one's breath, to swim with the sea life, completely untethered by technology.

"For everyone, it is a different and personal experience," says Etzel.

Audrey Mestre was a water baby to begin with and got hooked on free diving through a combination of science and romance. Both her grandfather and mother were spearfishers, and from her early teens, Mestre was an accomplished scuba diver. After her family moved to Mexico, she studied marine biology at La Paz University and for her thesis examined the effect of deep diving on human lungs.

Pipin Ferreras was a king of the sport at the time, and when happenstance led him to dive off the coast of Mexico, Mestre went along with the intention of monitoring him. Her proficiency as a scuba diver led to her selection as one of the scuba team monitoring Pippin's dive. They fell for one another, married, and quickly she came to share his zeal for the No Limits pursuit.

Even the obscure world of free diving has its politics. Mestre was affiliated to the International Association of Free Divers in Miami, a counter body to the bigger AIDA. Since Mestre's death, the organisation has refused to comment.

"After some deliberation, Audrey's parents and I have decided not to disclose any information whatsoever about Audrey's accident," said Pipin Ferreras in a recent statement."This will only increase the morbidity of the enemies both Audrey and I have."

Presumably, Cliff Etzel, who has been independently investigating the circumstances surrounding Mestre's death, is counted in that number. He is convinced that the tragedy was avoidable.

"Audrey was basically a very sweet and loving human being with a gentle nature which was, I think, quite different to that of her husband's and the organisation she was involved with. I think what happened was at least partly a consequence of the mindset and ego involved. There were a number of irregularities, including the failure to notify the water safety authorities that the record attempt was being made. They would have had medical personnel on standby."

Attempts to contact Carlos Serra of the Miami association were unsuccessful, but through statements, all concerned with Mestre's dive attempt, they have bitterly rejected suggestions that the safety procedures were anything other than rigorous. However, an official investigation is being carried out at the moment.

A main bone of contention with Etzel is the decision not to employ the "bail-out technique". The basic premise of this is that it gives the free diver a get-out clause; if they have not begun their ascent after an agreed time, they are delivered to the surface by a pulley operated by one of the scuba team monitoring the dive. The bail-out technique is, however, neither standard nor required.

"I just think that although free diving is by its nature dangerous, the risks are controllable," says Etzel. "These are not weekend warriors, these are highly skilled people who understand the physiological implications of what they are doing. It just ought not to have happened."

Since Mestre's death, the diving has not stopped. Last week in Nice, Loic Leferme set a record, which he dedicated to his deceased friend. Although the number of people affiliated to AIDA is relatively low in mainstream terms, free diving is taking an increasing hold on the imagination. While sales of scuba gear have remained stagnant, free diving paraphernalia has enjoyed a notable growth.

"Scuba diving was once associated with heroes, from Jacques Cousteau to the old TV show Seahunt," says Etzel. "But it has reached its middle age now. Free diving provides a new element of adventure, even if it is to simply descend to the floor of a swimming pool and sit there for 10 seconds."

For some, the lure of the unknown and unreachable will always prove irresistible, and even the constant ballast free divers have begun to go lower. Hence, free diving is a source of fascination for both daredevils and physicists alike. Last month a Venezuelan finned down to a depth of 91 metres, a previously unconsidered low, without the aid of a line attached to the surface.

Free diving is less gimmicky than extreme biking or skiing and has the added prestige of ancient history on its side. Among a generation constantly seeking fresh thrills and original pursuit, turned off by the corporate element of mainstream sport, it will continue to grow.

The sad death of Audrey Mestre has cast a macabre light on the sport at which the Frenchwoman was among the elite. With her fine Gallic features, her youth and her devotion to this strange and pure activity, it is inevitable that she will become a mythical figure for future generations.

"It is unquestionably the highest-profile tragedy that free diving has known," acknowledges Whelan. "And it is desperately sad that a beautiful and talented person should die in this way. In the short term, it may damage the reputation of free diving. But I think that the long-term implications will be that future no limits attempts will be carried out under very precise and defined safety circumstances."

Mestre's ashes have already been scattered upon the ocean. Much ink has yet to be spent on the bureaucracy and legal repercussions of her death. Pipin Ferreras intends to continue to devote his life to free diving in memory of his beloved.

Regardless of what others may think, he does not seem inclined to change his philosophy of the sport that has become a creed for life.

"Personally, with everything I am going through," he said in his only public statement, "I have given orders to my relatives and closest friends that in case this kind of accident should happen to me, they tie me with my weight belt and let me fall into the ocean with no investigation at all. Audrey and I had already talked about this."