Offshore the picturesque Turkish fishing village of Kas on October 25, Sahika Ercümen had reached 100 metres below the balmy sea surface. Inside, she was ecstatic. Having freedived unaided by oxygen or swim fins, she succeeded in doing what no woman had done before, even as the massive pressure of water crushed her lungs.
Amid feelings of joy, she kicked to start her ascent and her heart slowed to below 30 beats per minute. The presumed death of Russian freediving legend Natalia Molchanova just 10 weeks ago in Ibiza, Spain, had loomed large in her mind, but now she could banish those doubts and focus on reaching the surface within seconds, where she would celebrate yet another record with her team.
Except that never happened.
Among the ever-expanding field of extreme sports, freediving is still considered dangerous. According to Outside Magazine it has the second highest fatality rate after base jumping.
For millennia, seafaring tribes have taken part in this activity – holding the breath for several minutes while diving, even walking, deep underwater – to hunt for fish and dive for pearls. Today, it’s seen by enthusiasts as yet another way to push the limits of human endurance.
On Ercümen’s way back to the surface, the multiple-world record holder lost consciousness. Only a standby emergency crew armed with oxygen that took her to an awaiting boat kept her from repeating what was most likely Molchanova’s fate.
“I blacked out. Although in training I had passed 110 metres, I was a bit tense and excited before the dive because there were a lot of people around,” she says.
“The countdown meant I only had time for a last half breath. I fell asleep in the last 10 metres when my body shut down because of the lack of oxygen.”
Her record bid failed. But unlike other professional and amateur freedivers who have lost consciousness, Ercümen lived to tell the tale.
“The president of Turkey called to see if I was OK. I learnt a lot of lessons from this incident.”
Ercümen, who also works as a dietician and TV host, knows that freediving can cause heart failure and the brain to shut down as a protective mechanism, and that according to one study, 55 people died while taking part in the sport between 2006 and 2011.
She dived several times with Molchanova and says her death made her think more about personal safety (Molchanova went missing after a dive in August and was never found). But Ercümen maintains that freediving is not a dangerous sport.
“This was one of the very rare dives of hers when she was alone. That day she was without a lanyard [a short cable connecting the diver to the descending rope] and rope; she dived and was lost,” she says of Molchanova.
“You need to be respectful to the ocean; she was strong and careful to be sure, but that day she was lost. It can happen anytime to anybody.”
The biggest mistake people make is diving alone, she says. Another error is that divers see freediving as a sport to simply test one’s physical and mental ability.
“People push themselves too much when they want to discover themselves. For some it’s an addiction and they don’t tell the truth to instructors; a lot of people work all year just to freedive; they only have a few weeks holiday and they hide their illnesses or problems when the time comes around.” Corporate sponsorship enables Ercümen to travel around the globe and risk her life in breaking records. But she is aware that her world records (she currently holds two) are always under threat, so she continues.
For several months after her failed record attempt in October, she took a break from diving. Last month she returned, with a three-week training camp in the Philippines and will visit Egypt this month. In August she will make another attempt to break the record, in Turkey.
Despite the tense security situation in Egypt that has deterred tourists from visiting, a diving school in Dahab on the Gulf of Aqaba reports that several hundred to 1,000 divers still visit for training sessions each year.
“There are no locations in Europe comparable to the conditions we have in the Red Sea, and especially Dahab,” says Lotta Ericson, who founded the instructor training centre, Freedive Dahab, in 2003.
“Dahab offers great depth close to shore, which means you don’t have to rely on boats as support and transportation. The visibility is amazing; there is no current.”
Ercümen agrees,saying: “There’s a special place in Egypt, a kind of sanctum for freediving where there is a 94-metre drop off the coast that’s great for freediving. At night we go out to the desert; it gives you calm.”
The growth of freediving among extreme sports continues as more people search for a way to beat boredom and to test the limits of human endurance.
Stephen Starr is a journalist and author who has lived in Syria and Turkey since 2007.