Our World-Underwater Scholarship

The Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society is a non-profit, educational organisation whose mission is to promote educational activities associated with the underwater world. It has offered scholarships for over 35 years. owuscholarship.org

Photographs by Blaze Parsons and Adam Sellars

One last slow breath... remove snorkel,

After three days of cancelled, delayed and narrowly missed flights from Dublin to Bali, I arrived in the middle of the night in Amed. In the darkness, I found my way to my guesthouse and fell fast asleep. The next morning when I awoke, the sky was bright pink and the sea looked like molten copper. The spectacular Amed sunrise welcomed me along with hot tea and a warm coconut pancake.

After breakfast, I went up to Blue Earth, where Adam and some of his instructors we ready for me. It was great to finally meet Adam after several months of emails back and forth. He led me through a day of theory classes, followed up by an evening spent in the pool with the wonderful Mick working on static and then later on, dynamic breath holds.

The calm presence of Mick and Francisco was infectious and soon I was ticking off all of my pool requirements with ease.

The next morning was open water dive day. We finned out to the line of buoys at the mouth of Amed Bay and I spent the morning working with Morgan on my first-ever open water free dives. It was brilliant to experience the entirely new sensation of slipping into water and descending on a single breath. I was brought completely into the moment by the physiological and physical sensations of it. Everything in my scuba diver brain was screaming at me for holding my breath, after years of being told and then telling others the ‘No. 1 rule of scuba diving, do not hold your breath’.

Within free diving holding your breath is the rule. I was amazed by the quiet serenity that I found below the surface. Watching the movement of the rays of sunlight dancing in the water, I felt at home. There is a connectivity between the body and the breath that is only felt when you slow down and listen. The process of learning to free dive was all about learning to do just that. Listening closely to the body allows you to become more aware of the various sensations that occur on a single breath hold. It was felt incredible to reach a new personal best of 20m on a single breath while feeling completely at ease and relaxed.

On a personal level, I found that the course directly linked with some of my own experience in training and teaching yoga. The focusing of the mind and the calm control of the breath. During my freediving introductory course, I was able to tap into my yoga training to help with the breath work and my scuba experience for the body positioning and comfort in the water. I have long been fascinated by the link between scuba diving and yoga and I found this course to be the first step towards a deeper understanding of the topic.

I would like to say huge thank you to Adam Sellars and all of the instructors at the Pressure Project for introducing me to the world of free diving.

I would like to also thank Rolex and OWUSS for giving me these incredible opportunities to explore and discover in the underwater realm. Also thank you to all of my equipment sponsors, Fourth Element, Suunto, Halcyon, Reef Photo and Video and Nauticam. n