I was first enticed to the lure of ‘depth’ in 1996, watching Aharon Solomons, my soon-to-be partner, disappearing into the unfathomable azure waters of Crete. Together, we would go on to join forces and develop our own style of teaching freediving technique. In these formative years, I was mentored by freediving’s historic icons Umberto Pelizzari, Francisco ‘Pipin’ Ferreras, Audrey Mestre and Tanya Streeter.
Before competitions were registered, I was the deepest diving female in the UK and Israel, achieving 85m “No Limits” and 76m in “Constant Weight (with monofin)” and “Free Immersion” and my best “Static Apnea” is 6:22. In the AIDA world championships, I’ve represented both UK and Israeli national teams four times; I’ve also participated in national competitions on several other occasions. I assisted world champion William Trubridge in Dean’s Blue Hole, Bahamas as part of his safety team and as a fellow coach. I was one of the main judges in the AIDA world championships in Roatan, Honduras.

I recently reclaimed a depth of 73m full lungs in only 6 weeks’ training primarily ‘RV’ Residual Volume, i.e. empty lung descents, knowing that I had more air to equalise and more time at depth despite having achieved that in winter conditions. Both my mind and my body have learned what happens when the dive reflex takes over and responds instinctively without having to learn tricks to be able to equalise with programmed alarms, or, in fact, by thinking too much! I’ll be 60yrs old in October 2024, and I know I am capable of returning to depth again.

Whilst proud of these achievements, freediving means so much more to me than accolades and numbers. It is the medium through which I continue to explore the incredible power of the human psyche to transcend perceived limitations to reach ever-greater depths both in the mind and the water. It has become an integral part of my life vision, how I view the world and the life with which we interact.