So what is it like floating into the Big Blue?

“The most magical moment is when I escape gravity. It is liberation. It is breaking loose. I fly with my arms open. At those moments I am completely calm. Everything around me becomes one and I become part of that whole,” he tells this month’s Red Bulletin.

Freediving is a natural expression for his childhood ambition – he wanted to go into space.

“When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut and was constantly looking up at the sky,” he says.

“One day I saw a documentary about freediving legend Umberto Pelizzari. That was the first time I was confronted with a completely different world.”

Soon the Frenchman was practising holding his breath and diving at every opportunity to become one of the best in the world. His particular discipline is ‘Constant Weight’ where divers descend and ascend a line with just a monofin for assistance.

Like most freedivers, Néry does not practise the much more dangerous ‘No-Limits’ where freedivers descend on a weighted sled and ascend by pulling a balloon.

“Our sport is enormously demanding, from a physical point of view,” says Néry “but I don’t feel it’s dangerous because we have to stick to all these safety procedures. Or should I say I never used to feel it was dangerous? Of course, now I wonder.”

But if there’s one thing he fears it’s fear itself.

“Once it sets in you lose the cool and serenity you need as you fight for every metre. That’s the challenge, the art, the fascinating thing.”

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