A dive in Cape Town's Coral wetsuit factory
gaiane89underwater
Certain dreams are made of fantasies and aspirations, others are made of neoprene and memories.
My mother was a textile designer and as a child I would play for hours in her atelier, surrounded by walls covered in shelves on which spools of colourful threads were organised professionally. In my mind, those spools were keeping two watchful, benevolent eyes over me, from the height of their home and the diversity of their threads’ thickness, texture, material and colour. Places that transpire creative processes as such evoke a strong sense of home to me.
Thirty years have passed since I played under my mother’s spools’ eyes and I have, perhaps unexpectedly, become a freediving instructor. I thread with every breath a lifelong story of underwater wonderment and made acquaintance with the temper, personalities, and attitudes each water body has welcomed me in, to connect with the marine beings whose home they are.
As a keen yet hardly insulated woman, I mutate into my aquatic self by slipping into an underwater second skin, namely a neoprene wetsuit. In order for me and many others to get there, master mind of Coral Factory Elaine and her eighteen employees – all women but two men – make magic with their hands. They import one ton of neoprene sheets yearly and turn them into 500 new items approximately, including the tailor-made freediving wetsuit I needed and came to the factory to watch the finishes of.
This second skin is the door I walk into the water life in from that liminal space, the shore. A life of no rules but of senseful meaning, in which waves curl like mystic spirals at the surface of the sea. Passing silvery shimmers lure one’s attention below the surface.
Sheets of neoprenes were cut into pieces, guided by measurements and patrons, then sticked and stitched together. At the fitting test, minor adjustments perfect my water skin, and after collecting my grateful payment, Elaine sends me on my next adventure in her singing Scottish accent. She won’t be joining, she doesn’t dive.
Later on, dressed in the wetsuit and in my blue mind, I find myself immersed under the fronds of the magical African sea forest. Echoes of my heart beat at peace resonate in the form of meaningful thoughts. Echoes spreading like droplets do as they percolate into the ocean’s infinity. Rays of lights remind me of beauty and elegance, as water spirits birth new melodies in the voices of my mind for me to sing back on land, where underwater enchantment morphs into unleashed creativity. Like an omen to being in our old home – as in my childhood memory of my mother’s spool’s eyes, as in the enchanted world my second skin lets me live my double life in.
A Subterranean dive
An artistic partnership
Artist Loup Lejeune and I partnered in a creative project that came to life under the underground vaults of the Maison des Arts in Schaerbeek, Brussels, this February 2023.
The resulting art piece was an underwater close up video sequence of the angular shapes of my shoulder blades and foot suspended in the water column. The film was projected on a large silicon membrane with electronic basses to give it a reptilian feel and start a conversation about the memory of our species past in line with the question of the way the earth’s resources are being exploited infinitely today.
Competition dives
Competitive freediving
Snapshots from the Freedom depth competiton in Cyprus. Here above: after surfacing from one of my competition dive and doing the protocol, holding the rope while waiting for the judges to deliver their verdict. On the right: the competition boat. Below, from left to right : surface breathe-up while the judges are counting down to the official top; emancipating from the surface; going deeper – in those incredibly clear Chypriot waters and their 40-meter visibility; then coming back up and being met by two of the safety freedivers on my way to the surface.
I joined because I wanted to learn and discover this new type of freediving. Freediving is still a relatively new sport in competition and the rules are evolving frequently in the direction of a safer practice. I learnt a lot – about competition protocols, coaching, freediving in currents, competition nerves (!), I witnessed blackouts and loss of motor control, and what felt like many miracles. I made new freediving friends, got accustomed with new freediving gear and loved every minute of rekindling with the sea. I was hoping to find more depth and wonderful sensations, and while I didn’t find the depth I got good enough sensations and emotions, including feeling satisfied with myself and included within the community. It was like a first time of freediving, feeling vulnerable and not really having a clue, yet moving forward and finding out with every step, or arm pull really, what’s in it for me and what’s not. I dived a little bit deeper on the training line than I did on the competition line. It was all so serious on that line, I figured I’d keep it light on the numbers to keep pressure at bay. Not sure it worked. But the dives were comfortable and I enjoyed the sensations 🙂
The days in between the dives were really quiet, as were the days my sinuses didn’t want to cooperate. So I took myself for wanders. Here are a few shots from my visit of the Larnaca fort: mosaics from the 4th century depicting sea life, an ancient clay lamp and a painting of the fort….
