Diving is going back to the beginning, when everything was ocean.
And it still is.
Without that sea water that circulates through the earth through rain, oxygen, food, vegetation, our bodies… we would not exist. What changes is the shape, but it is still the ocean, we are all connected and we are all family.
A poetic truth.
The environment is not outside, it is us, we have to understand that.
When did you understand it?
I learned to swim when I was 3 years old, I loved it! At the age of 21, I went through depression, locked in my room for more than a month until I had the intuition that I should return to the sea.
Was it gradual or radical?
Radical. I went to Honduras and took a scuba diving course. As soon as I immersed myself in the sea, it was very clear to me that this was my place, but the bottles, the bubbles, the noise of breathing isolated me from the rest of the beings, so I began to descend in apnea, and that’s how I found the light at the bottom. from sea.
explain to me
With a little training, I could voluntarily stop breathing and hold for six minutes underwater, letting myself go. Without gravity, without fear and free, just the beauty of water and friendly lives.
He holds two world records for freediving.
I was the first woman in the world to dive one hundred meters with fins without breathing and the first human being to dive ninety meters without fins. I wanted to send the world a message of coexistence with marine mammals and aquatic life. Those records helped me have a voice.
Yours is a gift.
We can all spend six minutes underwater without breathing, I’m not special. We believe that we cannot endure, but we can, it is the mind that closes that possibility.
…
Humans have the so-called immersion reflex. When we put our face under water the heart rate slows down, the blood vessels narrow and the spleen contracts; These reactions help us save energy when the oxygen level is low.
Does the mind not let us hold on?
That’s right, you have to leave your mind on the ground. In nature, if you think and act you are already late. Anything that happens emits a signal, but it is so subtle that if you are thinking you cannot perceive it. Also, the mind uses 20% to 30% of the body’s oxygen, you can’t allow yourself to think while diving.
It would also be a waste.
If you want to spend more time underwater, relax. And to communicate with animals you don’t need the mind but the heart, that is my experience. The animals talk to you but you have to be open.
Do you practice meditation?
When I get in the water my brain, my attitude and my body change. You can do meditation anywhere and under any circumstance, it depends on your concentration.
60% of our body is water.
Before we are born we are in the maternal ocean, we are 80% water.
I have seen her in a photo face to face with a giant shark.
In water the vibration travels four times faster than on land, before I realize that I am afraid they have already felt it. And sharks don’t eat for pleasure but because they need energy. Before eating they make a circular movement, going up and down.
When you see that movement, do you run away?
Yes, but I also think that if they want to eat me they will do it before I realize it; but for them, with so many animals around, I am not a stranger, I am one more.
I have seen him holding hands with a crocodile.
In Cuba, I spent two weeks in the same place, they knew of my presence. That day I first stroked his tail and he didn’t do anything, then I gave him a massage under his back and front legs, he was super relaxed and I held his paw.
It’s amazing.
Both crocodiles and whales do not approach me if they do not feel comfortable. In fact, for me to be with them, they must come to me and slow down.
It must be wonderful.
Whales are like wise shamans, dolphins behave like teenagers, they approach you from the side, sea lions are like puppies, they always want to play.
And what do the whales say to you?
When they look at you they see inside you, they perceive your emotional state, and what they tell me is that you have to be honest.
What do you feel when interacting with marine animals?
That we are connected. I am one more, I let myself go, I become part of the water, I flow with the movement, I do not try to swim against the current, I am the sea. And by far the most dangerous animal, on land or in the sea, is humans.
