info (at) xiphias.it
Riccardo A. Andreoli
FREEDIVING
A lot of years diving (more than I sometime care to remember…).
I started freedivingin the glorious days of the first ’60s. I was about 12 years old and at that time freediving was eminently an unknown entity, the ears equalizationan almost unknown. I "learned" from adult divers about ears plugs...
The wetsuits were kind of patched: the top was without the head, the arms were shortsleeved, so I was compelled to entice some relative to buy me a separate couple of sleeves, the hood, and, of course, the pants. All was in pure neoprene, without any kind of layer between my skin and the material. Some degree of depilation was every time necessary to put on, and off, the wetsuit...
The thermal protection offered was at least shaky, but, oh, they were glorious days! They were filled with a sense of wonder and of unknown, huge possibilities that I dearly, sadly, regret looking back from now to these days…
From a biological point of view anyway a killed fish, with nets, line or gun, means the exact same thing: an individual taken from biomass.
In so many hours of diving I was able to meet wonderful underwater creatures.
Starting chronologically with fresh waters, at that time still a university student, diving with an oxygen respirator to encounter the fabled sturgeons of Ticino.
And sharks, really, so many of them, but with two in particular as cherished memory.
(and quasi-record)
A World record recognized internationally by two different organizations. Arecord for Western Australia
A couple of quasi-records, that is fish that should have been records ... if only I had known!
Three books on freediving and open sea fishing.
Plus, some books on the use of GPS in the marine field and two books in the IT field.
And maybe something still in the drawer ...
Diving in the Blue, far from the coast, with potential encounter with giant fish and enormously more powerful than the diver, requires special techniques and training but above all special equipment.
2005
I was lucky enough to be able to take a sabbatical from work and I left for the Round the World (capital letters required) trip, alone except for the first stop in Venezuela, so to be able to spearfish in freediving. I drew from it unforgettable memories, a book, a World Record... and a subsequent difficult re-insertion back into "normal" reality...
2007
Two years later, taking advantage of an extended vacation, I managed to make another one RTW trip, not alone this time, Federica is now my wife.
The route partially overlapped the previous one, and I went back to enchanting myself in the South Pacific again ... and visiting old friends, humans and not.
