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COOL-FIN
TANYA
Tanya Streeter is the latest free-diving sensation. In just 18 months she has sent world records tumbling and is now set to take on the chaps who dominate the sport. She talks to Brendan O'Brien about fear, the male ego and competitive urges.
THE DISCIPLINES
TANYA'S RAPID RISE
"Extreme snorkelling, that's all free-diving is," says Tanya Streeter. I'd only just met her but she was wasting no time in dispelling a few free-diving myths. "Anyone who has been snorkelling and dived below the surface has been free-diving. What I do is just a more extreme version."
This seems too simplistic. Surely only one in a million people possess the physiology to become a world-class free diver? But Tanya shakes her head, smiles and says: "All you have to be is comfortable in the water. You need to be in good health, especially your ears. Given that, anybody can free-dive."
Tanya, who is set to appear at the London Dive Show this month (see page 39), is close to the pinnacle of her free-diving career, yet this journey was never a burning ambition. It began when she attended an introductory talk on the subject (see overleaf).
But she's just a girl!
"A couple of male friends had called to tell me about a seminar they were going on. I guess they were kind of amused that I was as good at spearfishing as them. When I pitched up they all buddied up with each other so that they wouldn't have to dive with me. It turned out that I was the only girl in the class.
"Basically it was all these Caymanian lads wanting to find a way of killing fish deeper than anyone else. Apart from what I'd seen in the movie The Big Blue, I didn't know free-diving was a sport, let alone something with world records!"
We're not fish
Tanya believes there is plenty of room in the free-diving world for women. However, she says there needs to be a change in attitude from her male count-erparts first. "I don't know what it is about men, they paint free-diving up to be this thing that is so out of reach to any normal human being. If you glorify it too much, people will think" - here she whispers - "'ooh, only Pipin and Umberto and Tanya can do it'. That is not a smart thing to do if we want to popularise the sport. After all, we're not fish, we're human beings!
"A lot of people talk about yoga influences and that sort of thing. I don't do any of that. That's not to say that there's no right or wrong way of free-diving. My own way is within reach of anybody. It really is no different to any other sport, there's just this fear element that you have to overcome."
As Tanya talks about fear, she looks upwards, as though visualising a past experience. "It's only in the no-limits dives that I get scared. I remember sitting on a sled before a dive to 94m and feeling physically sick. I was just so nervous about going that deep.
"I'm always being told not to say anything like this in an interview, but it's normal, none of us is superhuman. Tell me what isn't frightening about going down to 94m?"
Tanya believes a strict regime of training and preparation can help anyone overcome their fear. "I started off on the sled at 15m. I'd only just done a constant-ballast dive down to 60m, but you'd be out of your mind to go straight down that far on a sled. It's so different, I would have had no idea what to do with the thing.
"After the 15m dive I did a 30m dive, then 45m, 55m, 60m and from there 6m increments to 84m and then 3m increments from there on."
Approaching a record attempt in bite-sized chunks is not without risk. "At around 60m I'll use the brakes to slow down to equalise my ears. At around 75 to 90m the chest walls begin to collapse due to the pressure. Then they start taking in fluid from around them, basically blood, to fill the little cavity that is left."
It's as though Tanya is reliving the experience. "Past 90m I'm no longer able to equalise, it's just continuous pain.
"Once you go through all that and hit 113m you can suffer similar symptoms to narcosis. The descent rate of more than 2m per second, coupled with the rate of exchange of gases, means that you can get narked quite easily. I feel dizzy and my eyesight starts going."
Mad Cuban approach
The answer, as Tanya explains, is to practise until the skills become second nature. "Once you're at that depth you need to have the mental wherewithal to detach yourself from the sled, hold on to the top of it and open up an air valve. It all works out great in The Big Blue, but it's really nothing like that. The air that comes out of the valve is really dense at that depth - and it screams as it comes out."
Tanya is completely immersed in the experience. Eyes closed, she imitates the wailing noise to chilling effect. "I was terrified the first time I heard it. And the air comes out so slowly! I've had to kick it to get it to go faster."
It's time to return to the surface. "When I first started using the sled I was terrified. But now I'm used to it... well, it's great." This answer doesn't seem to reflect the experience she has just relived. How does she really feel about no-limits diving? She laughs: "OK, bically it takes an enormous amount of balls!"
Tanya still has time for other free-diving disciplines. Of constant ballast she says: "This is the truest form of free-diving because of the physical element involved. It's also the most respected, despite not being the deepest."
And then there is her freshwater record: "That dive was great because I beat the men! It was also a really cool dive. The viz was bad due to the tannic water. It's this weird colour, like blood red. When I first put my face in it I thought: 'You can't be serious, I'm not going in there.' The thing is, once you get past 18m it doesn't change, it's just dark everywhere."
There are also some lesser-known disciplines. "There's the 'mad Cuban' category - well, that's what I call it. Basically, the divers wear nothing but a swimsuit. They pull themselves down a line and then back up again. It evolved because of a shortage of equipment in Cuba. It's something I might have a go at."
Ego-polishers
Tanya has yet to take part in any free-diving competitions. With tri-national status, she could in theory represent the Cayman Islands, the USA or Great Britain.
Why did she miss the World Free-diving Competition in Sardinia last year? "I wouldn't even want to compete. To put anyone who has a world record on a team is just unfair! I know I could do very well, but why take from another person the opportunity to do something they'll never get the chance to do again?"
She takes issue with Umberto Pelizzari, the constant-ballast world-record holder, on that score. "Not only did he take part but he organised the competition! He should not have been competing. The whole thing was his baby, and that's great, there's no doubt he did a great job."
It was no surprise when Pelizzari came first in the constant-ballast section of the competition. But surely it is natural to want to put the best people on the team?
Tanya disagrees. "There are millions of free divers in Italy; there was someone on the reserve team who didn't get a go because of Umberto. He didn't need another polishing to his ego, running the show should have been enough. I just think it's so chronically unfair and so non-conducive to popularising the sport."
Tanya also believes that competitive free-diving is too dangerous. In Sardinia there were 15 blackouts and one heart attack.
"You just don't put a sport like this in that sort of situation. There were people in the water who really didn't know their limitations.
"Despite the prospect of being disqualified they will go deeper than the person before them. This is what they came out there for, they want to beat that person. Matters are made worse because many free-divers are so attached to their egos."
Blowing it
There is another reason for Tanya's non-appearance in Sardinia. "Static apnea [pool breath-holding] is another area I don't agree with because of the safety angle. Besides which, I suck at it! I take a breath and straight away want to blow out again. I just want to breathe!"
If not in the competitive world, where does Tanya see her future? "I'd love to teach free-diving, but I would never pretend that I know everything there is to know. There would be a lot to learn.
"There are also so many people out there who must have a dormant talent waiting to be discovered. I would always teach them that there isn't one way. Find what works for you and find it by doing it safely."
Tanya has a strong desire to help popularise the safe practice of the sport. "I've started to speak to children in schools. Not just about free-diving but about how you really can be anything you want to be. I would have learnt about the sport ten years ago if only someone had told me. It's the same for anything in life."
Pipin, Umberto, keep an eye out for Tanya as she fins past you. And don't hold your breath. Tanya may not realise it yet, but it looks as if the free-diving world has at last found a role model for the Millennium.
| THE DISCIPLINES |
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| CONSTANT BALLAST |
Weight is used to help descend the measurement cable, and the diver fins back up still carrying weights. |
| VARIABLE BALLAST |
Diver descends with weight but abandons it for ascent. |
| NO-LIMITS (ABSOLUTE) VARIABLE BALLAST |
Diver slides down cable on weighted sled, then makes an air-assisted ascent. |
Tanya's rapid rise
Where are the blue lips, the hyperventilating and shivering, the usual signs that someone has just undertaken a deep free-dive? When Tanya Streeter surfaces, all you notice is her sunny smile. "I never take risks," says Tanya. "Every dive I undertake is carefully calculated." That might be so, but the Cayman Islands' government has distanced itself from her, claiming that it does not support "stunt diving".
Tanya was born in the islands, and it was no big deal for her to duck-dive for seashells with her friends while snorkelling after school or at weekends. "I've been in the water all my life," she says. "I guess I always dived a little deeper than the other kids." By the time she left to be educated in England, she could reach 21m with no real effort.
But it was only in 1997, after attending a free-diving clinic held by luminaries Pipin Ferraras and Rudi Castineyra, that Tanya was "discovered". Her personal best shot up to 29m on that day. "I was thrilled that I had achieved this, in spite of wearing little fins and a large-volume mask," she says. Pipin and Rudi immediately offered her coaching.
Her first goal was to break the US constant-ballast free-diving record. Rudi designed a demanding training programme to focus her both mentally and physically.
Within months she was setting world records first the ladies' constant-ballast record, with a dive to 53m; then a ladies' no-limits record of 113m.
Now Tanya has claimed her third world record, for freshwater constant-ballast free-diving. At Hal Watts' Forty Fathom Grotto in Ocala, Florida she went to 56m, 3m deeper than anyone had previously managed in fresh water - man or woman - in 2min 10sec. "I have never seen her so relaxed after a dive," says husband Paul, while his wife claimed that the dive was "well within my limits".
Tanya's work as Social Secretary to the Governor of the Cayman Islands means awkward hours, but she runs or works out religiously every day, sometimes twice, with husband Paul alongside her. She pool-trains five times a week, and can swim 100m under water on one breath.
Tanya controls her diet carefully before a record attempt. No chocolate for this confessed chocoholic! Her customised equipment includes 1.2m Omer carbon-fibre fins, 3mm suits with integral hood, and masks custom-made by Paul using silicone to reduce the volume. She uses only 1kg wrist weights.
Tanya is now turning her sights on the ladies' and men's variable-ballast and the men's no-limits free-diving records. Her ultimate goal is "to hold all five absolute world records".
- Lesley Orson
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