Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves
A damn good book. Journalist James Nestor originally started the odyssey of this work by attending a free diving competition, but this one event sparked something else in him: a wonder for the oceanic world. Nestor takes a literary voyage through the blue depths, carrying us with him as passengers as he discovers the dynamic between marine and mammal, man and water, science and myth. A must read.
Read and Recommended by Bex
Deep is a voyage from the ocean’s surface to its darkest trenches, the most mysterious places on Earth. Fascinated by the sport of freediving—in which competitors descend great depths on a single breath—James Nestor embeds with a gang of oceangoing extreme athletes and renegade researchers. He finds whales that communicate with other whales hundreds of miles away, sharks that swim in unerringly straight lines through pitch-black waters, and other strange phenomena. Most illuminating of all, he learns that these abilities are reflected in our own remarkable, and often hidden, potential—including echolocation, directional sense, and the profound bodily changes humans undergo when underwater. Along the way, Nestor unlocks his own freediving skills as he communes with the pioneers who are expanding our definition of what is possible in the natural world, and in ourselves.
