Freediving is a dangerous competitive sport, but Guillaume Néry has made it artistic, natural and utterly breathtaking.
Through his protagonist Phileas Fogg, the French writer Jules Verne took us on an epic voyage in Around the World in Eighty Days. With a similar quest in mind but using a decidedly different approach, Guillaume Néry embarked on an underwater odyssey based on a single breath of air.
Entitled One Breath Around the World, Néry’s journey began off the coast of the French Cote d’Azur. Standing there, waist deep in the Mediterranean Sea, he adjusted his goggles, took one deep breath and thrusted himself forward and downward into the deep blue. From that point and beyond, he was at one with nature’s most powerful—and beautiful—omniscient force: the ocean.
Over the next 12 minutes or so, Néry explored the mythical underwater ruins of Yonaguni Island in Japan, gliding past its lonely pillars. He walked, ran and parkoured all over the barren Mexican sea bed, just like he did in the music video for Naughty Boy’s ‘Runnin’ (Lose It All)’ featuring Beyoncé and Arrow Benjamin. He touched and even walked upside down on the reverse of a massive sheet of ice in Finland.
He swam in complete darkness. He dove headfirst into an abyss. He fraternised with great shoals of blacktip reef sharks and came upon a pod of gentle sperm whales resting vertically, keeping perfectly still as is their wont. He encountered a humpback whale and her calf before making one final survey of the underwater seascape, and then launched himself skyward to finally breach the surface.
He didn’t even gasp. Instead, Néry walked calmly up the pebble beach of Nice’s Promenade des Anglais; the sunbathers completely oblivious. It was just another bright sunny day on the scenic French Riviera.
A BEAUTIFUL, SILENT WORLD
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