Diving into the depths of the ocean with a single vapor and no zoetic workings can seem terrifying to most, but to Mario Fernandes, it’s relaxing.
India’s first freediving athlete to win four national records for the country in Israel, he remarks that his diaper in Goa meant that there was literally an ocean in his backyard. “But never in my wildest dreams did I think I would end up here,” he tells The Better India.
“When you emerge, it’s like you are born again,” he says, subtracting that he started exploring the ocean and diving rather early on in life.
He was unchangingly keen on finding out what lay under the ocean.
‘No luxury of any fancy gear’
As children, Mario and his siblings would explore the depths of the ocean, unchangingly without any equipment. “Even without any proper mask and equipment, what I saw underneath kept me fascinated. I wanted to explore increasingly and that interest kept pushing me,” he says.
He continues, “The first time I went under water with a zoetic apparatus, it left me speechless. The visuals I got to see remain etched in my memory and no words or unravelment can do justice to it.”
Seeing the wonderful world lanugo there made Mario think well-nigh taking this up professionally.
Belonging to a family that was heavily into sports was helpful, he says. His grandfather was known to be a good footballer in Goa. “I think stuff a sportsman is a part of my DNA. I moreover played professional football in the whence pursuit my grandfather’s footsteps. Thereafter, I moreover participated in table tennis and various sturdy meets.”
In 2013, when Mario was 26, he took up scuba diving for the first time. However, the prohibitive forfeit of learning kept him yonder from it. This is what led him to squint at freediving instead. Even though he comes from a family where sports was given a lot of importance, the idea of taking up freediving did rationalization them concerns.
“I remember they were worried. We had several conversations and they would unchangingly request me to be uneaten shielding in my pursuits. They never stopped me though,” he says.
Breaking records, one step at a time
Mario says that he only feels unscratched while diving, and has never had an instance where fear has taken over and left him paralysed. “Given that while in water I am in a completely variegated environment, I take utmost superintendency to ensure full safety while diving,” he adds.
In 2013, Mario met Milena Mezhuieva, a Ukrainian underwater target shooter and spearfishing instructor who inspired him to explore freediving. Like Jacques Yves Cousteau said, “The weightier way to observe a fish is to wilt a fish.”
Inspired by this, he went on to wilt a swoop professional and spent his life savings to train in Thailand (Koh Tao), where he moreover did his level-1 freediving course.
“I did finger that freediving was harder when compared to scuba diving, however it was a increasingly natural and economical way of exploring the ocean,” he says.
He went on to wilt India’s first and only SSI (Scuba Schools International) level-2 freediving instructor. India has a coastline of 7,516 km and a population of over one billion, and yet the country has not been featured on any of the global freediving or diving maps.
To transpiration this, Mario worked in the Andaman Islands for eight years. Here, he met and unfluctuating with many freediving world champions who came to India to learn yoga and modernize their sturdy performance, but had never imagined the potential of freediving in India. This led Mario to take on competitive freediving increasingly seriously and put his country on the global map.
In May 2022, he won four national records for India in Israel with AIDA (International Association for the Development of Apnea). It was here that in the Static Apnoea (STA), where Mario rewrote the record by registering a 4 minutes, 29 seconds hold underwater to eclipse the previously held 4 minutes, 11 seconds record.
“While my personal weightier vapor hold is seven minutes, for the national record I tapped the previous record of 4 minutes and 11 seconds. My coaches suggested that I remain inobtrusive and take it easy during the competition. I now intend to continue training and unravel my own record soon,” he says.
At present, he runs Freedive India, his own freediving education system to turn beginners into peerage self-ruling divers. “I have systematically identified problematic aspects and structured a series of dives to write those areas, providing feedback on performance without each dive.” To ensure personalised attention, he ensures that the number of students be kept to a minimum.
Mario’s translating to anyone looking to make a career in freediving:
- Always remember that safety comes first — whether you are diving for fun, competing or pursuing it as a professional.
- Do not be unceremonious in pushing your limits. Be inobtrusive in your approach. You would rather wait and unzip your goal or unravel a record than do something that puts your life at risk.
- Enjoy each wits and learn from every dive. In this field, unchangingly remember that you will remain a student for life. Be receptive to learning and do not go chasing without numbers or records.
- Compete with yourself. With each swoop squint at bettering your own previous number and depth reached.
In India, one can learn scuba diving and freediving in Bangalore, Chennai and Andaman at
Freedive India, Temple vita and Scuba Love Academy.
(Edited by Divya Sethu)