Pro Surfer Mark Healey Lands A Huge Wahoo While Spearfishing From A JetSki Off Oahu

Deep-water spearfishing for wahoo from a JetSki in Hawaii is a thrill I have yet to experience firsthand. Thankfully, I’m able to live vicariously through infamous big-wave surfer Mark Healey.

Hawaii is arguably the best place in the world to live if you’re an all-around waterman. Pro surfer Mark Healey was raised on Oahu’s North Shore, one of the best-known surfing destinations on planet Earth.

Growing up on the North Shore helped Mark Healey become one of the most legendary names in Big Wave Surfing but it also led him down a path of deep water spearfishing, free diving, sky diving, filmmaking, a job as a stuntman, and other extreme pursuits.

Mark Healey has a growing YouTube channel where he just uploaded a video of his latest deep-water wahoo spearfishing adventure. Healey left Oahu on a JetSki and returned with a massive Wahoo (fish), or as it’s locally known in Hawaii, an Ono.

The wahoo spearfishing action kicks off around the 3-minute point in the video. You can skip the intro and jump to the wahoo spearfishing by hitting the ‘play’ button below. Read more

What Is Freediving? The Perfect Way To Explore Underwater On A Single Breath

 

Freediving is breath-hold diving, being in and under the water while holding one’s breath.

Today, most people associate freediving with images of superhumans plunging to the ocean’s darkest depths with only the air in their lungs, the power of their bodies, and the will of their minds to keep them alive and bring them back.

However, every time you slip into the water and hold your breath, you are a freediver, exploring our world of water from the shallows to the depths. Read More

By Emma Farrell

The Deepest Diver in the History of Free Diving Goes Below the Ice

Molchanov beneath the surface before the dive.Credit...Viktor Lyagushkin

For the past four years, Alexey Molchanov has been the undisputed best all-around free diver in the world. He broke yet another world record last week, this time beneath an icy surface.

This dive was more difficult than most. His wet suit was seven times thicker than normal, which made it more challenging to kick against the positive buoyancy found in the first 10 meters, or approximately 33 feet, of depth.

All that effort demanded he tap into his finite supply of oxygen. To keep warm, he wore a mask, something he typically avoids on deep dives, which meant he had to hold his nose between his thumb and forefinger to equalize instead of relying on a nose clip. Plus, cold water makes equalization of the sinuses, when a diver funnels air into the sinuses to keep them pressurized to prevent head pain and injuries like burst ear drums, extremely challenging.

Within 20 seconds he’d reached 20 meters (66 feet) and puffed his cheeks out to create a vacuum for the remaining air in his lungs to fill. On typical dives, he stores this “mouth-fill” and uses it to equalize without having to worry about leaks. But in water that was between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius, around 35 degrees Fahrenheit, his lips numbed quickly, and he had to clamp them shut with his fingers, his thumb and forefinger on his nose, his middle and ring fingers on his lips.

Fishpeople | Lives Transformed by the Sea

 Fishpeople tells the stories of a unique cast of characters who have dedicated their lives to the sea. Featuring Kimi Werner, Eddie Donnellan, Dave Rastovich, Matahi Drollet, Ray Collins and Lynne Cox. Directed by Keith Malloy

Ashley Chapman Sets Two New U.S. National Freediving Records

 

Ashley Futral Chapman (photo credit: Ren Chapman)

American Freediver Ashley Futral Chapman this past week set a pair of Women’s National Freediving Records in Roatan, Honduras.

Ashley set a new Constant Weight (CWT) with Bifins record under AIDA International rules on May 18th with a dive to 76 meters/249 feet, beating Enchante Gallardo’s 75-meter/246-foot dive from last month.

A few days later, Ashley set a CWT with monofin U.S. record with a dive to to 86 meters/282 feet.

Other records that have been set recently in Roatan include Richard Collett for his Cayman Islands men’s Constant Weight with Bi-fins national record dive to 55 meters/180 feet, and Sayuri Kinoshita for her Japan women’s national record dive of 85 meters/279 feet in the same discipline.

By John Liang, News Editor at DeeperBlue.com

Natalia Molchanova, Freediving Champion, Missing and Feared Dead

Natalia Molchanova shows the minus-86-meter (-282 feet) tag that earned her win at the women's free-diving world championship on September 3, 2005.

Natalia Molchanova, 53, held 41 world records and was a 23-time world champion in freediving.

The woman billed as the world's greatest freediver is missing and presumed dead after failing to resurface from a dive off the coast of Spain.

Natalia Molchanova holds 41 world records and is a 23-time world champion in freediving. The sport requires divers to hold their breath rather than use scuba gear or oxygen tanks.

AIDA, the international freediving association, said that the 53-year-old Molchanova was "recreationally freediving" without fins on Sunday when she became separated from her group. She disappeared approximately two miles northwest of the port of La Savina at Poniente de es Freus.

"Search efforts have been ongoing," the association said in a statement.

AIDA said Molchanova's passion for the sport "burned so deep" that she had dedicated her life to freediving.

"She was an inspiration to all freedivers and despite being one of the fiercest competitors in the world, she was always calm and relaxed during competitions," the statement said. "The cause of Natalia's disappearance is unknown, but she was doing what she loved."

Molchanova — who could hold her breath for nine minutes and dive to a depth of more than 330 feet — had written freediving handbooks and trained thousands in the sport.

The Russian Freediving Federation — which Molchanova headed out of Moscow — called Molchanova's disappearance a "tragedy" and made clear it was unlikely she would be found alive.

“The search is still officially ongoing, but, to our deepest regret, the probability of success is small,” it said in a statement posted on the federation's website.

Kimmo Lahtinen, president of AIDA international, told NBC News that Molchanova was a "freediving superstar."

"Superstars will not die," Lahtinen said. "They will shine still after they are gone."

Fellow freediver William Trubridge was among those offering tributes to Molchanova following news of her disappearance.

Ashley Futral Chapman is Officially the Deepest (unassisted) Woman in the World

 

May 4, 2012 Ashley Futral Chapman breaks the Constant Weight No Fins World Record with a dive to 63 meters (207) at Performance Freediving’s Deja Blue competition in Grand Cayman, the Cayman Islands. The women’s CNF record was previously held by multiple World Record holder Natalia Molchanova who made a dive to 62 meters in 2009.

With this amazing 63m CNF freediving performance Ashley becomes the deepest unassisted woman on earth. Watch her as she uses only the air in her lungs and her arms and feet to take the new world record.

By Francesca Koe with Deeper Blue