Jacques Cousteau, the famous oceanographer and explorer, once observed that ‘from birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free’.
This sentiment is most certainly shared by Victoria’s Frederic Lapierre and Laurie Feist. The pair co-owns East 2 West Freediving Inc., a shop that specializes in helping folks slip the constraints of land and sink beneath the waves.
After Lapierre migrated here from the Maritimes and Feist from Scotland, the couple fell in love with the spectacular ocean life off Vancouver Island’s coastline. While both are fully certified and experienced scuba divers, it was freediving that captured their hearts. “We go out every Sunday and I can tell you that we have the best freediving in B.
C. There is so much life here,” Lapierre said. “We may not have the coral reefs, but we have incredible kelp forests – they are just amazing.
” Freediving doesn’t require a ton of heavy equipment: divers simply hold their breath and sink beneath the waves for as long as they comfortably can. This might be the most liberating aspect of the activity for the thousands of participants on Vancouver Island. “It means that we can walk in and dive in some areas that scuba divers just haven’t seen.
They’d have to take a boat in to get there,” Lapierre said. Freediving was never on Feist’s radar when she came to Canada. “I wanted to go scuba diving, but I didn.