from a freediver ' s perspective
I'm a freediver does it sound proud or reckless ?
Text Agnieszka kalska
I
Photos audrey cudel
remember to this day, when having a dozen or
ing at the screen, I had my fingers crossed so that
so years, the movie "The Big Blue" was shown on
the TV showed the scenes of the "diving madmen"
television. Any sea and diving fanatic for sure has
as little as possible and showed the dolphins in-
seen it at least once. Not having too much in com-
stead. After some time there were practically no
mon with the sea itself then (the only sea known
scenes with the animals and watching the scenes
to me personally was the Baltic Sea), and even less
of, incomprehensible for me then, pursuit towards
with diving (yes, I had tried it maybe twice, in a lake
the bottom of the oceans, especially in such an "ex-
in Ińsko and in Łagów, that's all), I switched to an-
travagant" way – it was just too much. Even at the
other channel in the middle of this movie. The only
expense of missing several scenes with my favour-
thing that kept me glued to the movie were the
ites, I changed the channel.
scenes with dolphins, which I loved more than any
48
other creatures since I had been a little girl. I was
Freedivers can be called madman and compared to
able to set an alarm clock to wake me up in the
the mountain climbers climbing to the top, risking
middle of the night just to turn on the TNT chan-
the loss of health or life, just to get to the top for lit-
nel at the right moment and watch "My friend the
erally one short moment, and then making not less
Dolphin", which I had already seen several times,
difficult way down. In freediving it seems to be sim-
to get a good look at animals even though I did not
ilar. A freediver goes down in one way or another,
understand any English dialogues. I did the same
struggling meter after meter down, puts on more
on Sunday morning, when they showed "Flipper".
and more m³ of water producing higher pressure,
It did not matter that it was the only day when I did
thus increasing the pressure on every point of the
not have to get up in the morning for training. Look-
body. At a certain depth the freedivers start to fall