The fourth round of the #apneaworldtour: Madeira

The next scene of our #apneaworldtour is the Portuguese island of Madeira. Sittika Maier from freedivingmadeira.com took part in an apnea diving course with Nik Linder accompanied by the DAVOSA Apnea Diver Automatic and reports on her newly found passion – freediving:

I’ve been diving with diving apparatus at our Manta Diving dive centre on the Portuguese island of Madeira for many years. Diving on Madeira is unbelievably beautiful: our dive centre is in a nature reserve and part of the Arena dive site. You can regularly find shoals of sardines, barracudas and lots of rays in our local house reef. And our guests are always impressed by the parrotfish, which are otherwise more at home in the Red Sea.

Our diving school is called Manta Diving because of the manta rays that pass through once a year. Whales and dolphins also pass by our island and even the rare monk seal is a regular visitor here. For a little more than a year now, I have been diving without diving apparatus and I’m discovering our house reef all over again. Without diving apparatus it’s possible to dive through smaller caves, turn around easily, and experience yourself and your surroundings in a completely different way. It’s a very intense feeling and one that I’d never experienced before.

In my apnea course with Nik Linder, I not only learnt how to hold my breath underwater, but also the correct way of breathing. I have become more relaxed and feel more in balance since I started integrating these exercises into my everyday life. The DAVOSA Apnea supports me in breathing more consciously and in practicing alternate nostril breathing.