The interesting rooms in
Brody House were once
artists’ studios
S A R D I N I A
The Mediterranean’s second-largest
island has a strong freediving tradition
and has hosted world-championship
competitions. Its waters are a
favourite haunt of Italian freediving
legend and multiple world-record
breaker Umberto Pelizzari. The Apnea
Academy founder – whose freediving
feats were documented in the 2001
IMAX movie
Ocean Men
– runs
courses and workshops here.
umbertopelizzari.com
M A L T A
Along with its smaller neighbouring
islands of Gozo and Comino, Malta’s
establishing itself as a top destination
for freediving. Emma Farrell runs
spring and summer camps here,
during which students can explore
underwater caves, wartime
shipwrecks, Comino’s blue lagoon and
practise skills in Malta’s Olympic-size
swimming pool.
emma-freediver.co.uk
D A H A B
Ninety minutes’ drive from Sharm
El Sheikh, this former Bedouin fishing
village on the Red Sea’s Sinai
Peninsula attracts freedivers from
all over the world. They come to dive
the Blue Hole, a submarine sinkhole
that reaches a depth of 130m. The
town is well set up for breath-hold
diving, with several dive centres and
courses available.
egypt.travel
I N T O T H E
B L U E
Fancy giving freediving a go?
Here are three top places to
try it out…
and meditation simply because it helps you relax and
breathe,” explains Sue, White’s wife, who took up
freediving five years ago. “Yoga helps with flexibility,
which helps you move through the water, and
meditation helps you relax underwater.”
To this end, Farrell leads twice-daily yoga sessions on
the
Mistral
’s deck. The first, an ancient Hindu ritual
called Sun Salutation, takes place at dawn. An hour and
a half of bending and stretching on an empty stomach,
while sweating profusely and squinting into the sunrise,
is not how I normally like to kick off my day. But credit
where due: I do feel surprisingly good afterwards, with
no crippling after-effects to report.
»
0 5 9
