On his final dive of the day, he saw three manatees drifting and twirling with sweet elegance. He swam with them for a minute. Maybe two. Long enough for the contractions to fade and his head to tingle as he kicked to the surface, where he slipped into a beautiful dream. He wasn’t wearing weights, which probably saved his life, and woke up on his back, staring at the treetops with a ranger shouting and stomping toward him from the beach. “I’ve told you for the last time, no diving! You’re done! Get the hell out of the water! Now!”
Disoriented, Nick swam to shore. He’d blacked out and wound up floating on his back. Years later he’d take a freediving class and learn how he’d succumbed to a surface blackout, and almost became a statistic. In the spring of 2000, Nick dodged a bullet, and he didn’t even know it.
On May 27, 2014, about a dozen divers and spectators huddled on the bow of a fifty-foot catamaran overlooking the competition zone, a kilometer offshore from the island of Roatan. A handful of others gathered in the water, on the outside of the yellow ropes that delineated the zone, which was populated by the usual team of five safety divers and three judges. Ren Chapman was leading the safeties again, though he had an entirely new squad. The most senior judge was Kimmo Lahtinen of Finland, the president of AIDA. Over the next week, Kimmo, Ren, and their counterparts would paste their faces with sunblock and wrap every exposed morsel of flesh with cloth, looking like devout Bedouins facing a sandstorm, but it wouldn’t matter much. Tropical sun always wins, especially when beating on the pale pigment of gringos surrounded by open sea for hours and days at a time.
But this was day one of the Caribbean Cup freediving competition, and the first man up was Walid Boudhiaf. The son of a Tunisian economics professor and a French doctor, he was born in Lyon and raised in Tunis. A gifted swimmer as a child, he spent hours in the sea and went spearfishing with friends whenever he could, but it wasn’t until he moved to landlocked Bogota, Colombia, in 2005 that he discovered freediving. By 2007 he could hold his breath for over seven minutes in the pool and began taking long walkabouts on the Colombian island of San Andres, where he found a coach who took him offshore for depth training.
He’d made slow and steady progress since then, and as he floated into the zone with a goal of 102 meters in mind, he was confident. Not only had he won silver in Roatan in 2013, he’d hit 112 meters during training just days earlier. This was the first of what he hoped would be a succession of Free Immersion dives that would push him into the big numbers, closer to his personal limit and a potential world record. Nevertheless, 102 meters was still virgin territory. Walid had never before eclipsed 100 meters in a competitive environment.
The Caribbean Cup was most certainly that. In just its second year, it was one of the shining stars on the AIDA schedule. On hand were world record holders William Trubridge and Alexey Molchanov, as well as onetime world record holder and current American record holder Ashley Chapman, Ren’s wife. Also here was former world champion Carlos Coste of Venezuela, the first man ever to swim past 100 meters.
The 100-meter plateau remains a standard on the men’s side of the draw. To get there means having a strong breath hold, the ability to relax as barometric pressure cranks up, a tolerance for the throbbing swirl of nitrogen narcosis, and a strong handle on the Frenzel-Fattah mouthfill technique. Oh, and divers need to have the athletic ability to swim or pull back up against negative pressure, while their legs are on fire thanks to lactic acid buildup and their intercostal muscles contract, in a desperate impulse to breathe.
Pulling off such a feat in training is incredible, but to do it with the added stress of competition, when spectators and judges watch every move, is an even stiffer challenge. That’s why any athlete who earns a white card for a clean dive of over 100 meters is finally taken seriously as an elite-level freediver. When Nick became the first American to hit 100 meters with a monofin the year before, his feat buzzed through the sport’s forums, chat rooms, and Facebook pages. Deeper Blue is the largest of the freedive forums, with over 36,000 members all over the world, and over 200,000 unique visitors each month. His 100-meter dive lit up Deeper Blue. Though he’d been on the rise for a year, after that dive, freedivers from every corner of the globe considered Nick Mevoli a credible threat to break world records one day.
Walid was partial to Free Immersion, because given his strong upper body and reedy legs, it fit his physiology. Plus, the Free Immersion world record seemed the most attainable. Alexey couldn’t be beat with a monofin, and Will’s dominance in Constant No Fins was well known, but Walid’s training dive to 112 meters gave him cause to dream that he might be able to get close to Will’s Free Immersion record of 121 meters before the week was out. That dive had been super clean; he could equalize easily and didn’t feel foggy at the surface. He knew he could do more, which is why he could hardly wait for the competition to begin.
Chiseled and lean, Walid was dressed in a low-buoyancy Orca wetsuit specifically designed for freedivers, with a lanyard jutting from the center of his chest attached to a carabiner. Lanyards are required safety equipment in all depth competitions, because they allow the athletes to clip onto a competition line that measures target depth, but is also attached to a weighted, counterballast system that if activated can pull divers back to the surface in seconds, even if they lose consciousness beyond the reach of the safety team. These days most prefer a Velcro quick-release lanyard, which they attach to their wrist or ankle like a surfboard leash. Walid’s lanyard was old school. As he clipped in and the countdown began, he couldn’t help but smile. Before him was a vast cerulean sea stretching to a long sweep of powdery white sand, shimmering in the sun.
On the southwest shore of the forty-mile-long island, West Bay Beach is a palm-freckled beauty, backed by voluptuous green hills swathed in scrubby jungle. Roatan, one of the famed Bay Islands of Honduras, attracts an offbeat mixture of package tourists from the States, high-class Hondurans from the capital, scuba divers from all over the world, and American retirees. Think bikinis, Speedos, and beer bellies; fanny packs, backpacks, and man purses; drunkards and explorers. They come to lounge on the sugar-white sand, drink piña coladas all day, and splash in the turquoise shallows. Some grab a mask and fins and kick out to a lovely reef that parallels the shore and slopes until it disappears into the Cayman Trench, a 12,000-foot-deep underwater canyon, the bottom of which nobody will ever see. It’s Roatan’s easy access to depth and consistent 30-meter visibility that made the Caribbean Cup such a choice addition to the freediving calendar.
When the countdown hit zero, Walid bent over backward with a reverse entry and began pulling down. “Walid Boudhiaf, Free Immersion, 102 meters!” shouted the announcer. “Dive time of three minutes and fifty seconds.” Given the water’s clarity, it took a while before Walid was swallowed up whole in blue.
It’s a strange thing to wait at the surface for a deep diver, especially early in a competition in which all athletes get six dives to score once each in the three disciplines. In terms of the standings, early dives don’t matter much. There’s more tension later, when the athletes are in rhythm and pushing their limits, and each dive is critical to determining a champion. This, however, was the first dive in a major competition since Nick’s death, and Walid’s pace was troubling. He reached the bottom plate in less than two minutes, but his ascent was just faster than a sea snail’s. “I have him at 90 meters,” said the announcer. “Two minutes and twenty seconds!” It would take Walid another full minute before he’d reach 50 meters.
The safety team stirred in anticipation and Ren was the first to go down. Everyone else stared into endless blue, on edge, willing Walid to materialize. Could the sport suffer another injury or tragedy immediately after its first? Walid appeared from the shadows holding the answer. He moved in elegant rhythm. Right-hand pull, glide. Left-hand pull, glide. As he breached, he gripped the line hard and took three hook breaths, or sharp inhales, which he held for a second or two before exhaling. Depleted of oxygen, hook breaths
helped Walid absorb it as quickly as possible. Of course, there is always a lag before that fresh rush of O2 reaches the brain, and with the first inhalation an athlete who has pushed their limits is in danger of becoming dizzy and losing motor control. If that happens and his mouth dips into the water, he earns a dreaded red card from the judges, and the dive is disqualified.
Walid never got dizzy. He barely looked out of breath. He was slow but strong, and the dive was as clean and relaxed as he’d hoped. Kimmo flashed a white card and the gallery erupted with celebration and relief. Walid had achieved a new national record for Tunisia, joined the 100-meter club, and gotten the 2014 season off to a splendid and safe start.
The night before the competition kicked off, the thirty-three divers who had signed up to compete in the Caribbean Cup gathered at the rustic San Simon Beach Club in West Bay. They were from Argentina and Chile, Colombia and Venezuela, Mexico and Honduras. Latino divers who usually have to travel to Europe to compete in world-class events were ecstatic to be diving in a Spanish-speaking country. Argentinean Esteban Darhanpe, who’s lived on Roatan since 1999, founded the Caribbean Cup in 2013. He lost money the first year. He also lost his job running a dive center, and spent the rest of that summer installing floors in vacation homes, but he never considered folding the operation. “Year by year we get more competitors,” he said, “and that’s what I care about.” He cares so much that he pays the freight for seven athletes. “I cover the champions, and the ones who are broke.” This year, the broke included Venezuelan Iru Balic, the defending champ on the women’s side. Though that was more the fault of her government than her bank balance.
As the cup was set to kick off, Venezuela’s streets were roiled with civil disobedience and its economy was close to collapse. Shops had bare shelves and it was illegal and impossible for folks like Iru to take their money out of Venezuelan banks and use it overseas. In the past, the government had assisted Iru and Carlos Coste in their drive to compete on an international stage because their accomplishments were celebrated in the media back home. In May of 2014, those days looked to be over.
Kimmo opened the meeting by explaining the rules of play, as Iru sat with her friends from Colombia, a gardenia in her thick brown hair. However, he neglected to explain the scoring system before yielding the floor to Ren, who had something more important to discuss.
“There’s something we’ve been talking about ever since the recent tragedy with our friend Nick,” Ren said, “and that’s squeezes.” Six feet tall with a chiseled physique, blue eyes, ruddy cheeks, a wave of blond hair, and an easy North Carolina drawl, Ren, then forty, has a confidence, competitiveness, and charisma that draw you in without overpowering you. A natural athlete, he played baseball through college, then ran his own contracting business in Wilmington, North Carolina, until he quit to sail and teach freediving full time. “We’re gonna be watching you, and if we see anything that looks out of the ordinary, you are gonna talk to Kerry and Steve.” He gestured toward Dr. Kerry Hollowell, thirty-eight, and her boyfriend, Steve Benson, forty-six, a physician’s assistant. The couple lived together, worked at the same hospital in Greenville, North Carolina, and also knew Nick well. “So take care of yourself and get rest, but if you start spitting up blood, just know that we have the ability to ground you.”
“It’s not grounding you,” said Iru, “it’s taking care of you.” Iru was also close to Nick. The flower in her hair was a dedication to him, a nod to his habit of bringing her flowers each morning the year before, when she dominated the women’s draw. The most accomplished Venezuelan woman ever in the sport, Iru was adorable, with big eyes and a sharp wit, and could effortlessly bring a room to life.
Standing beside Ren was his wife, Ashley, a tall, athletic all-American beauty, straight out of the Carolina countryside. Her long brown hair flowing over her shoulders, she cradled her nine-month-old baby in her arms. In 2012, she’d set a world record, and this would be her post-maternity comeback party. “I’m so stoked to be here and see all of you,” she said, “but I’m not stoked to be here without Nick. We have to have each other’s backs. We tried to have Nick’s back, but we failed. We all failed, and I don’t plan on losing any more of my friends.” She paused to let her words sink in, and fight back tears. “Let’s keep that in our minds in every competition we go to. He’s the first death, and he was our friend.”
The next morning, after Walid’s nervy dive, Alexey Molchanov floated into the zone with his girlfriend and coach, Marina Kazakova, an athlete, actress, and model. Dressed in a hooded gold wetsuit, glittering in the sun, he remained upright and held the line with both hands, preparing to dive to 92 meters in his worst discipline, Constant No Fins. This would be a personal best and a national record, but to Alexey it was also a stepping-stone. For his entire career he’d put his energy into Constant Weight, which is why he owned the world record at 128 meters. In 2014 he would switch gears, hoping to close the 10-meter gap between his personal best and Will’s Constant No Fins world record, and overtake his rival as the best all-around diver on earth.
Alexey’s dive was devoid of drama. He announced a dive of 3:10, and he was on point the whole way. When he hit the surface, Marina kept her GoPro camera rolling and guided him through a clean surface protocol. “Vichy, Alex, vichy,” she said in their native tongue, beaming with pride. His sharp inhales anchored him back in this world as they awaited the judges’ decision.
White card.
Soon it was Will’s turn to slip into the drink. The first half of 2014 had been difficult. In January, he thought he’d landed a big-dollar deal with the National Geographic channel for a live televised world record attempt in Kona, but before he could sign on the dotted line, a tragedy on Mt. Everest killed sixteen Sherpas, shut down the climbing season, and killed a TV series the network had planned to air in 2014. When new network leadership arrived to pick up the pieces, they decided that a $3.5 million record attempt in a niche sport was too much of a risk. The deal was off. But it wasn’t a missed opportunity that weighed heavily on Will’s soul when he floated into the competition zone. It was his missing friend. He’d dedicated his first dive of the 2014 season to Nick Mevoli, announcing a depth of 72 meters in Constant No Fins.
It should have been easy for the world record holder, and his form looked solid on the way down, but his attention was divided, and narcosis crept in at the bottom plate. He took too much time finding the tag, and didn’t ascend with purpose. When he breached, he looked disoriented. Luckily, Carla Hanson was there.
A Newport Beach native and onetime competitive freediver whom Will trained and certified at Dean’s Blue Hole, Carla is an AIDA judge. In fact, she was one of the three judges at Vertical Blue when Nick passed, but when she’s not working a competition, she moonlights as a valuable coach. As a former diver she knows exactly what her athletes need during breathe up, and her loud, high-pitched tone slices hypoxic haze during the critical seconds of a surface protocol. Will flew her in for just such a moment.
“Breathe!” she yelled. “Grab the line, William! Breathe!” He was only half-conscious, his peripheral vision obscured by the fluid goggles, but slowly all came into focus. “Goggles!” Carla screamed, and with some effort, Will pried the goggles off his eyes and moved them to his forehead. He blinked hard, twice. Then a third time as if waking from a stressful dream.
“I’m okay,” he said, looking at the judges, making the sign and completing the protocol. When Kimmo flashed the white card, he smiled with relief. Yet even in tribute, it was not the sort of beginning to a competition that a contender hoped for. Alexey had looked smooth and strong. Will looked anything but.
As promised, Ren and Kerry had been watching. Ren signaled to Kerry, who called Will to the platform where she’d set up a clinic, stocked with emergency supplies. She would run a battery of tests on the deep divers, test their blood for oxygen saturation, ask them to cough to see if they would produce blood, and listen to them breathe through her stethoscope. Will
checked out fine and was soon sitting on the platform, breathing oxygen to recover.
Such a thorough workup right after a dive was not typical protocol, and some athletes were annoyed to have to cough when they’d rather be breathing oxygen or grinding a protein bar, but 2014 wouldn’t be a typical season. Like it or not, every event that year would operate beneath a shadow, and Kerry Hollowell was on a mission—to make sure what happened to Nick never happened again.
It was a winding river of discontent, a throbbing mass of civil disobedience. Protestors carried hand-scrawled placards reading: Get Corporate Greed Out of Government, People Not Profits, and Raise the Minimum Wage. There were peace activists who wanted the military budget slashed and dollars diverted to teacher salaries, and an LGBT contingent agitating for equal rights. Sol and Nick marched alongside them up Ben Franklin Parkway toward the Philadelphia Museum of Art—the same route Rocky Balboa made famous—when a call-and-response chant broke out. “This is what democracy looks like!” Someone called through a megaphone up ahead. Nick, Sol, and the rest of the activists roared their response.
“This is what democracy looks like!”
It went like that, back and forth, as they approached the museum, and when the chant died down, a feminist cheerleader squad took center stage. “My bush for president!” they yelled as they leapt into the air, their short skirts billowing upward, revealing hilarious merkins to the delight of the crowd. The lesson: there’s no reason activism can’t be fun.
For Sol and Nick it was fun. Philadelphia in July 2000 was part carnival, part revolution. They landed in the belly of a vital movement hungry for change. The two friends craved a world where profit and efficiency were tempered by justice and community, and so did the tens of thousands who had taken over Philadelphia. Most activists had a pet issue that motivated them, and each day had its own theme. One day the focus would be on wage disparity, the next would highlight environmental issues, and so on.
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