Human Fish Breaks 11th Record

The trip into the big blue took two minutes and 20 seconds in the Constant Weight category, and rounds off an amazing competitive season. She set a national record of 42 meters in Constant Weight no Fins by swimming breaststroke down and back up, and 52m Free Immersion, pulling down a rope and back.

She has been freediving for over ten years but this is the first time any South African has held all six competitive discipline records at one time.

Other South African Freediving records held by Prinsloo are the Dynamic Apnea, swimming underwater in a pool with a monofin for 150 metres; 126m Dynamic no Fins, swimming breastroke underwater and the scarcely believable, hard-to-imagine 5min 39sec Static Apnea - the time she held her breath immersed in a still body of water. 

Prinsloo has been training in the world-famous Blue Hole in Dahab in Egypt for the past six weeks to break the last of the South African Freediving Records.

Prinsloo, who some say is not really human, hails from the cold waters of Cape Town, and over the weekend told Wavescape that preparing for such dives was not ideal: “I came to Egypt without much preparation. Cape Town is a tough place to really train deep freediving, let alone in winter, and working full time.”

Prinsloo said that the Constant Weight record had eluded her due to equalisation problems for a few years but was super stoked to finally have broken through and felt there are no limits to what she might achieve next year.

Prinsloo returns to Cape Town next week to resume her Oceanic work teaching freediving, developing the I Am Water Ocean Conservation Trust and freediving the South African coastline. She will spend the next four months in South Africa training before returning to Egypt to prepare for the World Championships. She is within reach of the No Fins World Record and hopes to challenge it next year.

Spike asked her a few questions:

Were you happy with your buildup to Egypt and while there in terms of moving into the psychological space you wanted to be.

Dahab is a simple town where all I eat, sleep and breathe is freediving. So as soon as I arrived here I slotted into focus and followed quite a strict training regime- physical, mental and nutritional.

This year has definitely been different to other competitive years. I have a bit of a notoriety in freediving circles as anti-competitive and not really at ease competing. This has to do with the very strong emotional connection I have with the ocean, and in the past I have lost my joy in my diving when trying to focus it to competition. But this year with the help of a great mental coach, as well as a very firm decision to love every dive and every day in the sea, everything has fallen into place.

Can you explain a little bit about this headspace and where it takes you when you're deep in that big blue zone - unpack the physiology of it for the lay person

Freediving is a very mental sport. You dive into the ocean but as much into yourself. I do two or three warm up dives before my deep dive, just to relax, feel the water and awaken the dive response. The Mammalian Dive Response is an incredible physiological adaptation we have to breathhold diving that puts us humans in the good company of seals, whales and dolphins. Something many of us have never experienced.

I breath up at the surface taking deep slow breaths to slow down my heartrate, before starting the dive. The last breath is important, deep breath, almost feeling your lungs explode against your ribs, and dive.

I do 14 kicks with my monofin  before I start my favourite part of the freedive, the freefall. At this point I am at about 25m, where I am heavy and no longer float, so I stop kicking and fall. I feel the pressure against my chest growing as my ribs get more and more compressed as the air in my lungs gets less and less from the pressure. I focus solely on equalisation now. The air in the ears also getting compressed causing discomfort of the eardrum, so push push push, making sure the ears stay equalised, miss one... and I'll have to turn. After about 1 one minute and 15 seconds I reach the bottom of the rope. It's still light down here even though I am below 60m, this is the joy of the blue blue Red Sea. Here I am completely alone. Utter solitude. It's a beautiful place.

When I turn, I am heavy, so I have to work hard with the monofin to start my ascent back up the rope. At all times along the dive I am attached to the rope by a lanyard, keeping me safe, so my dive buddies know where I am. Kick kick kick, it starts getting lighter and eventually I see my safety diver who has come to meet me at 15 meters. She smiles at me and I smile back. I float the last five meters up to the surface. The sun, the sounds- the deep, quiet blue already just a memory. An addictive one. A place that once visited calls you back again and again.

Are you a fish?

No Spike, an Aquatic Mammal!;)

Upon her return to SA she will be teaching freediving courses in Durban and Cape Town, and people must please drop her an email if they are interested. Visit hanliprinsloo.com