Just concentrate on my chest,” says the blonde-haired, bikini-clad mermaid sitting in front of me. With my wife looking on, I try not to look open-mouthed, but as her diaphragm expands, then her lungs, filling with up to six litres of air, it is difficult not to.
As far as free-diving tutors go, Tanya Streeter – who defied all her male rivals to set some 10 world records and was once described by Sports Illustrated as “the perfect athlete” – takes some beating. And as for places to learn, Amanyara – the luxurious Aman resort on Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos – is not too shabby, either.
It was on this Caribbean island that Tanya set her world record dive of 525ft (160m) on a single gulp of air in 2002 and where, eight years later, she has returned for a fortnight (to coincide with the peak of whale migration season) to teach, talk and inspire the guests.
I feel privileged to be learning from the best. First, how to use my diaphragm to maximise my lung capacity, for we use only a fraction of our capability; then, how to regulate my breathing and lower my heart rate – Tanya’s drops to as little as 10 beats a minute when she dives. I listen intently as she explains how we all have a “mammalian dive reflex”, an instinctive response to cold water that triggers a series of protective physiological changes that can help you achieve the above.
But as we put this into practice, with a series of underwater breath-holds in the pool, I realise that defying the need for air takes serious willpower as well as a willing student.
I try to distract myself from oxygen cravings by reciting song lyrics, without much success. Matter defeats mind and each time I resurface with remorse that I have not held on for longer. A shade over two minutes 40 seconds is my best (compared with Tanya’s astonishing record of six minutes 17 seconds). But she seems encouraged by my progress and when she signals that there is time for one last effort, I vow to make it count.
“Try imagining something as simple as walking around your house,” she says, as we go through the breathing exercises. “And remember: your body telling you it wants to breathe is a natural reflex, but it doesn’t mean you need to.”
With Tanya next to me, I take my last breath and sink into the warm saltwater pool, closing my eyes as I roll forward to float face down.
In such exotic surroundings, taking a journey back to the domesticity of south-west London is the last thing on my mind. But this Roedean-educated girl knows a thing or two about free-diving. So home it is.
I start in the kitchen: the pale wooden cupboards, the washing-up undone, the leaning tower of papers, the empty wine bottles. I glance out the window: the new tool shed, the grooved decking that has seen better days, the flower bed dug up by my horticultural nemesis, the ginger cat from next door.
I feel the first pang for air, but shut it out. Then it’s the sitting room. My lungs are beginning to ache now. I twitch and shudder. I really want to breathe.
I flick my left index finger, as agreed, to let Tanya know I’m still OK, despite the burning sensation spreading across my chest.
Next, the bedroom: I begin to swallow involuntarily, my body convulsing now from the craving for oxygen. Flicking my finger for the last time, I try to hold on. Ten more seconds? Five, then? It’s no good. I need a bigger house. I need bigger lungs. I need to breathe.
I reach out for the steps and Tanya helps me resurface.
“Don’t speak. Just breathe,” she says calmly, as my wife, Katie, recoils at the sight of my blue lips and ashen face. I’m shaking, but as my lungs fill with sweet oxygenated air, the colour returns to my cheeks and I feel strangely euphoric.
“So?” I gasp.
“Four minutes and three seconds,” she says, in an accent that drifts from the lilt of the Cayman Islands (where she grew up) to clipped public-school English with the occasional Texas drawl (she now lives in the US with her English husband, Paul). “Pretty darn good for a first go. You’re ready to go free-diving.”
Tanya’s first foray into the world of free-diving was during spearfishing trips with friends in Cayman. After proving remarkably adept at collecting the fish the others could not recover, she was invited to a free-diving workshop and, despite being the only female among a “sea of beards and biceps”, she never looked back.
Six years later, clad in her trademark silver suit, she plummeted 525ft into the deep off Providenciales’ north shore – a depth that no human had ever managed in a single breath. It thrust her into the spotlight, on to magazine covers and into the hearts and minds of Turks and Caicos people. The government, thrilled at the publicity, even featured her on a set of stamps – the first living person other than royalty to be accorded such an honour.
But she has earned that seal of approval. That night Tanya regales guests with stories of her exploits, her encounters with dolphins and whales and the freedom of diving shorn of tank, weights, noise and bubbles. But there is also the pain. On her record-breaking dives, her lungs shrivel to the size of small fists, the pressure on her ears is excruciating and her chest fills with blood to prevent her rib cage caving in.
Free-divers talk, too, of the moment that they reach the point of no return. Contrary to reports at the time, which described her blowing euphoric kisses to sea as she reached 525ft below, Tanya admits that her overriding feeling was of the sadness her family and friends would experience if tragedy struck. There was no panic, just a calm acceptance that she might well not have the breath to make it back to the surface. Somehow she did.
“People who think that free-diving is life-threatening misunderstand the sport,” she says. “It is entirely life affirming.”
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