Deep
Freediving, Renegade Science and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves
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4.4 • 9 Ratings
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
From the author of the international Bestseller Breath
Covering a diving championship in Greece on a hot and sticky assignment for Outside magazine, James Nestor discovered free diving. He had stumbled on one of the most extreme sports in existence: a quest to extend the frontiers of human experience, in which divers descend without breathing equipment, for hundreds of feet below the water, for minutes after they should have died from lack of oxygen. Sometimes they emerge unconscious, or bleeding from the nose and ears, and sometimes they don't come up at all.
The free divers were Nestor's way into an exhilarating and dangerous world of deep-sea pioneers, underwater athletes, scientists, spear fishermen, billionaires and ordinary men and women who are poised on the brink of some amazing discoveries about the ocean. Soon he was visiting the scientists who live 60ft underwater (and are permanently high on nitrous dioxide), swimming with the notorious man-eating sharks of Réunion and descending thousands of feet in a homemade submarine. And on the way down, he learnt about the amazing amphibious reflexes activated in the human body under deep-water conditions, why dolphins were injected with LSD in an attempt to teach them to talk, and why sharks like AC/DC.
The sea covers seventy per cent of Earth's surface, and still contains answers to questions about the world we are only beginning to ask: Deep blends science and adventure to uncover its amazing secrets.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This exploration of the "human connection to the ocean" begins with free diving, the technique of depth diving on single breaths of air. While free diving may have earned YouTube notoriety as a danger-laden sport with "fringe disciplines" and stunning depth records, Nestor is only briefly fascinated by the "ego-driven competition," and focuses instead on free diving as the elemental mode for accessing the wonders of the ocean. A surfer with a lifelong connection to the ocean, Nestor interpolates his own training to "go deep" with encounters with scientists researching at the limits of ocean knowledge. He avoids the "quasi-religious terms" encountered in others' experiences of deep dives, yet still offers an acute sense of wonder and respect for the ocean, from the disappearing diving traditions of ancient cultures to the diversity of life in earth's deepest trenches. Nestor's explorations of the "outer limits of amphibious abilities" and "latent and unconscious senses" that link humans to our aquatic evolutionary heritage make for a thrilling account, made timely by the rapidly changing state of earth's most expansive environment.
Customer Reviews
Interesting subject, but author lacks understanding
It is an interesting book for anyone who'd like to read about freediving and humans connection to the oceans. Unfortunately the author has a limited understanding of many aspects of freediving, makes number of incorrect claims and seem to promote dangerous approach to the sport.
Good read if one wants to find out what has been happening in the sport in recent years. But pleas discard sections on approach and techniques in freediving as they lack required depth and are often plainly incorrect.