At the limit: freediving

Ally · 11-04-2007, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Ninety metres underwater is not a sensible place for a human being. At a point that is almost as deep as Big Ben is high, the water pressure on your body is 10 times greater than air pressure at sea level. Your lungs are squeezed to the size of fists and your body is no longer naturally buoyant. Rather than floating, it sinks like a stone. To swim back to the surface, even with the aid of fins, will take you two minutes.

Now imagine swimming to that depth, and back again, on a single lungful of air. Because that’s what the British diver Sara Campbell did last month in Dahab, Egypt, when she set a world record of 90 metres (295ft) in the discipline of “constant weight” freediving.

She did it with the help of a mermaid-style fin, and the dive took 3min 46sec. It was one of three new world records she set in a single weekend. Last week she won gold in the constant weight category at the world championships in Egypt.......

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle2791537.ece