<iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-K3L4M3" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">

Books

The dreadful (and unnatural) toll of freediving

Adam Skolnik tries to fathom what makes people risk their lives in this pitiless sport

30 January 2016

9:00 AM

30 January 2016

9:00 AM

One Breath: Freediving, Death and the Quest to Shatter Human Limits Adam Skolnik

Corsair, pp.312, £20, ISBN: 9781472152022

In principle, freediving is simple and perilous: divers take one breath, then dive as deep as they can, with no tanks or air, and come back up again. Watch a video of this — or Luc Besson’s 1988 film The Big Blue — and you have to hold your own breath, because it is beautiful, streamlined, pitiless: a human in the most powerful and unnatural element for humans.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Subscribe for just $2 a week

Try a month of The Spectator Australia absolutely free and without commitment. Not only that but – if you choose to continue – you’ll pay just $2 a week for your first year.

  • Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app
  • The weekly edition on the Spectator Australia app
  • Spectator podcasts and newsletters
  • Full access to spectator.co.uk
Or

Unlock this article

REGISTER

Available from the Spectator Bookshop, £17. Tel: 08430 600033. Rose George’s latest book is Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry that Brings You 90 per cent of Everything.

You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it. Try your first month for free, then just $2 a week for the remainder of your first year.


Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator Australia readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Close