In the air pocket of a gloomy sea-cave, a New York teenager breaks the surface in a panic. His shock of curly hair is pressed flat to the nape of his neck, and he gulps a lungful of air before spitting an adrenaline-fuelled monologue.
“Holy SHIT! I seriously though I would DIE in there, man!”
He pushes his snorkel mask up past eyes wide as dinner plates.
“I was following your fins in and you just DISAPPEARED into the DARK. I thought I was going to DIE, dude, oh my God. That was AWESOME!”
This cossetted young Manhattanite has just swum the length of a 75-foot underwater cave in total darkness on one lungful of air. One breath. He’s feeling pretty pumped.
This is free-diving. The fins he followed into the black hole were mine. This was my favourite part of my job, every day, for three summers in the Caribbean.
