I’ve written about William Trubridge previously, but missed this footage of his record-breaking unassisted free dive to 88 metres in the Bahamas on April 10 of this year. Superhuman. He’s answering fanmail in the comments thread. (via Sockyung Hong)
Without wanting to sound too morbid, it’s like taking as big a step as you dare to the underworld across that line. When you turn around at the bottom and come back up, your will to live has to match equally the extent to which you have been prepared to kill yourself.
— New Zealander William Trubridge on his own mortality in an interview with Claire Harvey in March. This week he conquered the depths of Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas, twice. On April 5, he secured the world record for a constant weight dive without fins of 84 metres (in 3:20), surpassing the previous record held by Austrian diver Herbert Nitsch (83 metres). Three days later he claimed the free immersion rope-assisted world record of 107 metres (in 3:56). Here’s video footage from 2007 of Trubridge’s 82-metre dive at Dean’s Blue Hole, and of the first-ever no fins, no suit dive through “The Arch” at Dahab’s Blue Hole to the Red Sea, 55 metres deep and 30 metres long.
