Beyond Freediving

06/22/2017

An average of six individuals succumb to blackouts in Hawaii annually. A combination of factors are responsible but ultimately death results from hypoxia (lack of oxygen to the brain).

06/01/2017

James Nestor, author of DEEP: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves, takes us on a transformative journey into the ocean.

01/04/2017

Great opportunity to support your passion, meet some interesting people, and tour our next artificial reef before they sink it. I look forward to seeing a lot of freedivers there.

01/04/2017

About Eric If you have not heard of Eric Fattah but are interested in the history of competitive freediving, now is the time. In 1998 Eric invented fluid goggles, not realizing that Roland Specker had invented similar goggles in France but never marketed them. In 2001 Eric set the first world record...

01/03/2017

Nice edit that Marc put together of himself slaying big Wahoos here in Town of Beaufort NC with Cj Swartz and M-Alain Babi

Best of 2016 wahoo spearfishing off North Carolina coast.

12/10/2016

This is a great display of the speed and power of a big Wahoo. She spools his 75meter reel in 10 seconds, then drags him on his float line for another 200+me...

11/15/2016

Did you know grouper will go up to moray eels and shake their head calling the moray for a hunt. It will then follow the grouper to where a fish is hiding in a rock. The grouper points with its head the exact location of the fish so the moray can easily find where that fish is hiding. They have figured out that working together creates a better success rate for both the grouper and moray. Got that quote from Michael Dornellas

Fake eels could show that we are underestimating the brain power of our gilled relatives. Redouan Bshary of the University of Neuchatel explains how his obse...

11/15/2016

10/29/2016

Congratulations Alexey!

Breaking news coming from La Paz, Mexico today at the Big Blue Freediving Competition with Russian Freediving superstar Alexey Molchanov breaking his own AIDA World Record in Constant Weight (CWT) by diving to 129m in 3min 50sec.  According to sources on scene Molchanov said the dive was “hard” due…

06/15/2016

CONGRATS KURT CHAMBERS!

Hawaii freediver becomes ‘America’s deepest man’.

West Bay, Roatán, Honduras. Kurt Chambers, a resident of Kailua-Kona, has just set a freediving U.S. national record of 101m/331ft, which is the deepest dive ever accomplished in competition by a U.S. athlete. He performed the dive on day five of the Caribbean Cup, a prestigious annual freediving competition that attracts many of the world’s most elite freedivers. The performance surpassed the previous record of 100m/328ft held by the late Nick Mevoli, which had also been accomplished at the Caribbean Cup three years ago.

The Caribbean Cup attracts athletes from around the world for many highly favorable circumstances, such as the flawless ocean conditions Chambers was offered on the morning of his attempt. After his single massive breath and plunge below the surface, a tense conglomerate of judges, safety divers and spectators were able to monitor Chambers’ progress with a SONAR-equipped fish finder mounted on the competition platform. “Fifty meters!...Sixty meters!”, an official shouted, fueling the anticipation of onlookers rocking on boats connected together to form a makeshift arena around the platform. Meanwhile, as Chambers sank deeper than most would dare even SCUBA dive, he was not experiencing the favorable management of equalization he had hoped for: “It wasn’t easy, but I had tricked myself beforehand into thinking it would be, which helped me relax before the dive.” As the official observed Chambers’ blip on the fish finder screen reach the end of the guide rope extending well over a football field in length below the platform, “TOUCHDOWN!” was yelled to exuberant cheering from everyone, including the other athletes. Though Chambers was only halfway through the dive, “I knew I would make it after grabbing the tag, as my main challenge was equalization and I had not gotten significantly hypoxic yet in this comp.” Two minutes and fifty-two seconds after departing the surface Chambers re-emerged and it was clear to everyone, almost immediately, that he had achieved the record. Everyone, even his coach, was quiet---no one needed to remind him to breathe as is customary when a freediver is wavering on the edge of consciousness. A quick and confident “I’m OK” uttered by Chambers demonstrated that he indeed had a comfortable margin from the dreaded hypoxic ‘limit’ that can confound an athlete even after surfacing. Promoting an air of suspense, he slowly removed from his hood the tag he had to retrieve at the bottom plate, proving without a doubt that he had reached the record depth, which elicited celebratory cheering and splashing that could be restrained by the spectators no more.

Freediving is a popular pastime in Hawaiʻi, commonly employed by spearfishermen, but not well recognized locally in its form as a competitive sport. Chambers initiated himself to breath-hold diving out of a motivation to try spearfishing when he moved to the Islands from Texas over ten years ago. His athletic background lured him to the competitive side of freediving practiced by a small contingent of enthusiasts in the deep waters of Kona, where Chambers is now based. The sport is comprised of multiple disciplines sharing the general goal of maximum distance swam underwater on a single breath (i.e., using no breathing apparatus as in SCUBA). All disciplines share the requirement that the diver remain conscious for the entirety of the dive, including at the surface after the dive when a surface protocol demonstrating coherence must also be performed within 15 seconds. Losing consciousness due to lack of oxygen, also known as ‘blacking out’ or ‘shallow water black out’, is common in this sport, but is managed without accident through a system of close supervision and effective protocols rehearsed and practiced meticulously in these events.

As competitive freediving is still miniscule in comparison to other professional sports, never offering prize money, Chambers will return to his day job after leaving Roatán, to save up for the journey to the next exotic setting where a depth competition will be staged. Not surprisingly, Chambers is employed as a local freediving instructor, operating his own school Hawaii Freediving and offering courses throughout all the islands. He feels gratitude for being fortunate enough to get to enjoy his passion as his work: “I am grateful to all the students I’ve had the last several years, as they have kept me in the water a lot and funded my trips to these international freediving competitions, which I like to think of as ‘continuing education’ for myself.” Having exhausted all of the formal freediving education opportunities offered in Hawaiʻi some years ago, Chambers yearned for more and had no choice but to venture abroad to continue his progression. “At the competitions I get to rub elbows with the best freedivers in the world, as well as share what I’ve learned myself. The camaraderie at these competitions is what will keep me finding a way to attend for as long as I can.”

Chambers shares his media, training resources, and class dates through his page at http://www.facebook.com/hawaiifreediving.

photo: Alex St. Jean. the official photographer for the Caribbean Cup 2016.

06/15/2016

This week’s video is by the inspiring and talented Daan Verhoeven who shot and edited this video taken from the Suunto Vertical Blue 2013 Freediving competition.  He has kindly dedicated it to Nicholas Mevoli. Got a great video to share? Feel free to contact us. What is Video of the Week? Our aim is...

05/13/2016

The MAKO Spearguns Freediver 2 Gear Package is designed to get you in the water with high quality and dependable gear without breaking the bank.

05/06/2016

Great article about getting into freediving.

Welcome to our Beginners Guide to Freediving. In Part 4 of this series takes a look at why you need on a Freediving course.

05/03/2016

"To freedive is to return in some small way to a unity between ourselves and water" www.deeperblue.com

05/01/2016

Congratulations!

NEW WORLD RECORD
William Trubridge -122M FIM
Vertical Blue 30/04/2016

04/30/2016

Excellent trauma kit that every spearo should have on board.

One of the consequences of the numerous and seemingly unending wars the world has seen over the last 65 years is the many crossover innovations that were founded on the battlefield. The GPS, cell phone...

04/27/2016

Congratulations Sayuri!

On Tuesday April 26th at the Vertical Blue 2016 event in the Bahamas, Sayrui Kinosh*ta of Japan dove to a depth of 72m in the Constant Weight No Fins (CNF) discipline to break the current world record. RELATED: Freediving Disciplines Explained The previous record was held by the late Natalia Molchan…

01/21/2016

Game changer

12/23/2015

Great idea for a last minute Christmas gift! Give your loved one the experience of a lifetime. An AIDA 2 freediving course with Beyond Freediving in Beaufort, NC. The only official AIDA certified freediving instructor on the East Coast of the United States. Contact us to purchase a "Gift Certificate" good for one year for $295. Next season AIDA 2 will cost $395, so give one to yourself to save $100, if you wish. Offer good through Christmas day.

11/19/2015

Had a great day with Skip Conklin and Chris Conklin on their boat, "Ocean Athlete", Monday. We caught a limit of nice King Mackerel, a Cobia, and an Amberjack on Hook and Line. Non-stop action all morning. Then they graciously gave me a chance to freedive with my speargun, even though they had no interest in getting into the water themselves. I shot and landed a 40lb Cobia and a 15lb Grouper inside of 40 minutes in the water. We also saw a Humpback Whale with calf and a Right Whale on the way home just off of Atlantic Beach. Thanks again for a great day Skip and Chris. Mako Spearguns, Austin's Diving Center, RIFFE International George Frazier III,

11/04/2015

ITA | ENG

Alexey Molchanov ha messo a segno l'immersione più profonda di sempre con bipinne con -105m

Alexey Molchanov pulled off the deepest ever bi-fin dive with -105m

Big Blue, La Paz, Mexico 3-11-2015

10/18/2015

Silently capturing your journey in the deep.

10/14/2015

Don't hyperventilate.

Take a look, but please dont share this video. I'm not sure I want to post it.

10/11/2015

This could be the first ever drone footage capturing the teamwork involved in landing a Dogtooth Tuna. Nate Brejnak, Jarrah Tutton and Brandon Wahlers travel to…

10/09/2015

All you need to know about life under the surface...

09/10/2015

Organizers at the 2015 AIDA Individual Depth Championships ( ) Pre-Competition in Cyprus are looking into how a line was set to the wrong depth and causing the diver – French Freediving...

08/20/2015

We are planning a bluewater spearfishing charter out of Beaufort, NC this Sunday, the 23rd of August. Anyone interested please let me know.

08/05/2015

Video Interview with AIDA president Kimmo Lahtinen about Natalia Molchanova. She will be missed.

The Russian world record holder went missing during a recreational dive off the coast of Spain last Thursday.

08/04/2015

Very sad to hear this. Hope that she turns up.

AIDA International and the family of missing World Champion Freediver Natalia Molchanova has issued a formal statement regarding her disappearance whilst Freediving in the Mediterranean near Ibiza. You can read the statement below. The Worlds Most Accomplished and Famous Female Freediver, Natalia Mo…