The Freedive Cafe Podcast

Originally produced between 2019 and 2021, the Lost Episodes of The Freedive Cafe were originally released as exclusive content for Patreon subscribers, then lost to time. Recently unearthed in the Sinai desert, I can now deliver them for your listening pleasure!

This episode with Davide was originally released on Patreon in October 2020.

To become a supporter of the podcast through Patreon visit:
https://www....

Kateryna Sadurska is a world record holding freediving athlete from Ukraine. Kate joined me at The Little Blue in Dahab to discuss her amazing 2023, how she trained for those huge dives and how her philosophy of freediving is evolving.

She first appeared on Episode #139 of the podcast.

In this episode we discuss:

This was the first Freedive Cafe interview filmed at The Little Blue | Freediver's Oasis...

Frank Pernett is originally from Colombia. He has been freediving his whole life and been involved in the deep freediving and freediving competition scenes for many years. He is currently based in Sweden where he is working towards his PhD under the watchful eye of freediving scientist Erika Schagatay

Frank is a wealth of knowledge about freediving science and physiology and today we discuss some of the traditional topics of freediv...

Davide Carrera was born in Turin in Italy and began freediving as a child during his summers spent in Leguria.

He has was part of the World Championship winning teams of 1996 and 2001 and established a FIM world record shortly after when he dove to 91m.

 He moved away from the competitive sphere in the end and went on to study yoga extensively, and he integrates that into his freediving, and it was his tale of solitary wand...

Alexey Molchanov is a multi-world record holding and world record breaking freediving athlete and arguably the greatest and most consistent freediving athlete of all time.

In this episode we discuss:

This is the 150th episode of The Freedive Cafe!
Alexey was in Cyprus at the time of recording, preparing for the AIDA World Championships.
Alexey's thoughts on the doping accusations against Vitomir Maric...

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Bevin Reynolds is a competitive pool freediver with multiple national and African continental records. 
Despite only coming into the sport 18 months before her first AIDA Indoor World Championships this year, she took home 3 medals and the title of Vice-World Champion.

In this episode we discuss:

Bevin is from the suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa
She had an early affinity...

Shadi Türk is a Syrian former fixer and journalist who worked through 10 years of the terrible war in his home country. After reaching his breaking point in this capacity he embarked on a journey of discovery which led him to Kaş, Türkiye, and the new adventure of deep freediving.

In this episode we discuss:

Shadi was born and raised in Syria and moved to Türkiye when he was 18, where he studied architecture.
...

Khaled ELGammal is Egypt's deepest diver and the first to reach the 100m mark. Today we hear about how Khaled left a corporate life working in oil and gas to dedicate himself to training for and teaching freediving.

In this episode we discuss:

Khaled was fresh back from Kuwait where he was acting as safety diver for the CMAS Indoor World Championships.
Shout out to co-host Jordy Duncan who is competing fo...

Gary McGrath is the deepest ever self-propelled freediver from the UK, claiming a national record of 112m in CWT at 2022's Vertical Blue competition.
In this episode we catch up with Gary since last years amazing Vertical Blue performance and examine the dark places in our mental environments, open up about depression, anxiety and seeking help, and sincerely hope you benefit from this discussion ❤️

Also watch on...

Miguel Lozano is one of the deepest freedivers in the world. He first appeared on episode #67 of The Freedive Cafe podcast!

This interview is also available in video format on the Freedive and Thrive  Youtube channel:
https://youtu.be/XW-Y_zBHixw

In this episode we discuss:

Miguel and I last spoke in January 2020, recorded an interview and forgot to release it!
About Miguel's Deep Camp in Dah...

Stefan Randig is a German competitive freediver based in Dahab, Egypt. He first appeared on episode #10 of The Freedive Cafe:

https://freedivecafe.com/2017/10/01/10-stefan-randig-freedive-panglao/

In this episode we discuss:

The last time Stefan and I talked was in 2017, on episode #10 of The Freedive Cafe! (link above)
What happened to Freedive Panglao?
Stefan started his freediving journey in Da...

Jordy Duncan is not only my awesome co-host on the Freediving Journal News Dispatch, but an up and coming elite freediver in her own right. 

Jordy has only been diving for around 2 years but has managed to achieve distances in the pool of more than 200m, which for me is an absolutely mind-blowing achievement!
 
Perhaps more interesting than Jordy's rapid rise as a freediving athlete is to see that in the conte...

Pete Botman is a Canadian/Dutch freediving athlete and instructor based in Dahab, Egypt. He is a 100m+ diver,  multiple World Record holder in the CMAS Master's category and didn't start freediving until he was later in his forties.

In this episode we discuss:

Pete was born and raised in Canada but grew up speaking Dutch.
He joined the swim team and competed at quite a high level until aged 16.
T...

Tito Zappalà is an Italian freediver and coach. He worked under the eye of Andrea Zuccari at Freediving World in Sharm el-Sheikh for five years before moving up to Dahab when he currently lives and coaches.

In this episode we discuss:

Tito and Kat's plans for the winter.
Only 3 people in 7 years who pissed him off!
Tito is from the galaxy and the stars, and ... specifically from Sicily, Italy.
Ear...

Ali Okab is the boss and face of the world-famous Aqua Marina, located right at the Blue Hole north of Dahab, Egypt.

His restaurant is the starting point for all freediving adventures in the Blue Hole and the de facto family house for freedivers from all over the world.

In this episode we discuss:

Ali's full name is Ali Rekab Ali Ali Okab.
Aqua Marina is a home for all the freedivers of the world...

Kateryna Sadurska is a multiple record holder and Ukrainian champion. 
Kat has a background as a synchronised swimmer and even made it to the Olympics in Rio to represent Ukraine in that sport, and later turned her attention to our wonderful sport of freediving where she has rapidly been rising to the elite levels, especially in her pool performances.
 
In this episode we discuss:

Katerina is from Mykolaiv, Ukr...

Denis Grosmaire was raised in the pacific island nation of French Polynesia, travelling for island to island as a kid with his mom, growing up in the ocean from a very young age.
 
However, he didn't dive deeper than 30m or take a freediving course until he was 39 years old. After that he very quickly rose up through the competition ranks and now dives well over 100m.
 
Denis also has a fascinating relationship...

Bizo Silva is an Emergency Medicine physician practicing in a trauma center in Northern California, USA. He specialized in lung ultrasound in trauma. Bizo took part in much of the basic research and development of methods on how lung ultrasound is practiced today. 

After working for a few years in a very busy trauma center in Brazil, he moved to the USA in 2007. He discovered freediving on a vacation to Hawaii, and shortly after dec...

Alex Llinas is from Colombia and holds several national records. He dived his first 100m during competition at this years AIDA World Championships in Roatan.
His story of spending years in immigration limbo, battling cancer and losing his father before going on to become a top freediving athlete is truly inspirational.

In this episode we discuss:

Alex is from Colombia
About San Andres island, Colombia