Guillaume Néry, the record-breaking free diver on a mission to save the world’s coral reefs: ‘there is a big chance they will die’
Record-breaking free diver Guillaume Néry can hold his breath for eight minutes – we flew to French Polynesia for an exclusive diving lesson, and to find out about the French athlete’s plan to save the oceans
As about 30 pairs of diving fins paddle awkwardly at the surface of the sapphire-blue waters of Bora Bora, Guillaume Néry cuts elegantly through the water, gliding effortlessly to the seabed, and looks up at us and the reef sharks circling around. From his vantage point, we must all look a panicked pod of seals desperately trying to escape Great Whites.
We’re in French Polynesia as part of the Panerai Guillaume Néry Experience, where clients who buy the selected limited-edition timepiece are invited to dive with the whales, sharks and manta rays with champion free diver Néry.
Very soon maybe 100 per cent of the coral will die because the ocean temperatures will rise and we don’t know how the coral reefs would adapt to it – there is a big chance that they will die
Unlike Néry, it is very quickly apparent that “diving” is never going to be the correct word to describe our clumsy splashing. The 37-year-old Frenchman, who can hold his breath for close to eight minutes, has been exploring the depths with only goggles and a pair of fins since he discovered he had a talent for holding his breath at 14 and decided he should put that talent to better use.
“I was always excited by this idea of going deep and when I discovered that I could hold my breath long and I had some reserves, I decided to start diving,” Néry says later when we are back on dry land.
“I remember the first time I got in the water. It’s fascinating because it was like, wow, you can’t see the bottom but you want to go further right into the unknown. You want to touch the ground and you want to land on another planet. It was more than just a sport.”
Since then he has landed on many planets and set more than 10 French and world records in the process, first for a dive at 82 metres in 2001, up to 126 metres in 2015. His professional diving career was cut short later that year when a miscalculation by organisers led to his diving 139 metres instead of the 129 metres he had been aiming for. The mistake almost cost him his life as he blacked out and almost drowned while ascending.
He shrugs off the mishap. “It’s all part of the story. Before that, I had another world record, and even with the accident, it was like a very deep dive and so, at the end, this day will stay forever in history.”