Mariner Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves

I first heard about this book when the author James Nestor was a guest on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast however I had already been intrigued by the sport of Freediving since I read an article in ESPN the magazine back in the late 90's. I remember reading about it and being so fascinated by the ability of these seemingly normal human beings diving down to unfathomable depths on a single breath of air. My best friend and I were out in my pool literally 30 minutes after reading the article seeing who could hold their breath the longest and the following day we went to the lake in our community to attempt to reach the bottom near the dock. It was very surprising to me to hear on that podcast episode that most people still had never heard of Freediving. Hopefully this book will bring the sport into the light because it is truly amazing. The book starts out with the author who works for Outdoor Magazine being sent half way around the world for a competition that he had never heard of before. After witnessing the event he began a quest to understand how this was possible. Along the way he discovered many intriguing things about human physiology, the ocean and the organisms that live in it. His adventure brought him from Freediving competitions to taking a Freediving course to diving with a research team studying sperm whales...he even took a ride in a homemade submarine! I love the way the book is presented, the chapters are arranged brilliantly and it was very hard to put down. The author puts a spotlight on cultures that have used this ability to activate the Mammalian Dive Reflex for centuries. I extremely enjoyed reading this book as it has expanded my knowledge of ocean biology and the possibilities of human physiology.

All about freediving and breath

A great training book.

Having read Nestor's Breath, I came to Deep with high expectations, and still left humbled by how much further he went. The premise sounds narrow: a journalist stumbles into the world of competitive freediving and follows the thread wherever it leads. But Nestor understands, as the best science writers do, that any one door into nature opens onto everything else. Freediving becomes a lens through which he examines cetacean communication, the biomechanics of pressure, bioluminescence in the mesopelagic zone, and the ancestral reflexes buried in our own physiology. The book descends by depth, each chapter pulling you further from the surface. Structurally elegant, never gimmicky. What separates Deep from ordinary science journalism is that Nestor earns his observations. He's not interviewing scientists from a press room; he's in the water with them, frequently out of his depth in both senses. That discomfort is visible on the page, and it keeps the writing honest. The undercurrent throughout is grief, for what the ocean is losing and how little most of us have bothered to look. Nestor doesn't moralize. He just shows you enough that the conclusion arrives on its own. A rare book: scientifically serious, personally vulnerable, and impossible to put down.

Excellent! J’ai adoré ce livre! Chaque page est un enseignement! Délivre des informations originales sur les océans et la vie qu’ils contiennent! Belle découverte de la plongée en apnée.