Stephen Heape swears his five- and seven-year-old sons don’t mind eating raw sea cucumber.
He chuckles when pressed: In truth, the boys have at least tried the sashimi he and his wife, Kelly, have served after harvesting the marine animals on a freedive in Howe Sound – north of their East Vancouver home.
Dr. Heape says the adventurous young eaters really do enjoy the gooey alien creature when it’s braised down into a gelatinous mixture served over rice with mushrooms. “It’s a lot like a clam, only slightly sweeter. I love it, it’s delicious. … You just don’t want to be the one cleaning it if you’re gonna be the one eating it,” he says.
Kelly Heape hands a sea cucumber to her sons Fox, 7, and Bear, 5, on a Labour Day weekend dive in Howe Sound.Courtesy of the Heape family
Shortly after the married anesthesiologists relocated their family from Nevada in 2022, they became part of a growing community of people who are pulling on wetsuits and fins to hunt for their own food on B.C.’s South Coast – no Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus needed.
Many of them are keen on learning how to harvest slow prey such as sea cucumbers or urchins. They may later arm themselves for faster fish.
After several classes, an expert can teach them the joys of holding their breath and swimming below the murky water – past the chilly point called the thermocline – to observe harbour seals, ling cod, sardines and octopuses.
Chris Samson first got into spearfishing during the pandemic. The construction safety expert took to the waters off of Nanaimo and was soon hooked. Now, YouTube videos of his adventures garner tens of thousands of views and he’s constantly informing others on best practices for how to spearfish huge ling cod. He estimates it costs less than a thousand dollars to get the used gear needed to start diving in this “cold, green and dark part of the world.”
Freedivers like Mr. Samson need to be in good physical shape and practice their breathing for excursions without air tanks.
There is no way of knowing how many people have taken to the sport in B.C. because the three main accreditation authorities – Molchanovs, the Association Internationale pour le Développement de l’Apnée (AIDA) and the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) – do not publish how many people have passed their courses in the region. But thousands of people are in a handful of Facebook groups where members post regularly about B.C.’s waters and co-ordinate with one another to ensure they are following the No. 1 rule of the sport: Never dive alone.
Roberta Cenedese, one of the province’s longest-operating freediving instructors, estimates she has helped train hundreds of people. Ms. Cenedese, who is now one of nearly a dozen instructors operating in Metro Vancouver, said freediving is a more zen experience than diving with an oxygen tank and other clunky gear that produces noise – and huge bubbles – that can scare wildlife.
“I tell this to all my students when they sign up for a course with me: ‘Now that I have your money, I’m going to tell you that you signed up for a crash course in meditation,’ and that’s what it is. Because if you are not 100 per cent present, you’re going to turn and go to the surface,” she said. “You’re going to encounter all the voices in your head that tell you you can’t do something … and once you practise that for a bit, those voices quiet and you become present, you become aware of this feeling of calmness, of being a part of the environment, of just the gratitude.”
Luca Malaguti, the Heapes’ instructor who once trained with Ms. Cenedese, said anyone who wants to learn quickly will be disappointed. “Some people, they just want it fast and cheap, and freediving is the exact opposite,” Mr. Malaguti said during a recent video interview from Croatia’s Lastovo Island, where he was attempting his deepest dive on record, 93 metres.
Beginners need to be competent swimmers in decent shape. Lessons typically involve jumping in a pool to learn techniques to maximize their ability to hold their breath. By the end of most beginner courses, most divers can hold their breath for at least a minute and a half and reach at least 10 metres deep in the ocean. They also learn how to rescue a friend who is in distress.
Dr. Kelly Heape joined Mr. Malaguti on Croatia’s Lastovo Island earlier this year to do research on how freediving affected the physiology of nearly a dozen extreme athletes attending a camp there. Sponsored by a grant from the faculty fund at her hospital, Royal Columbian in New Westminster, with support from the University of B.C., where she also teaches, Dr. Heape is examining how and why certain divers get hit by “lung squeeze” – or the freediving-induced pulmonary syndrome (FIPS) characterized by fluid or blood intruding into the lungs.
By studying these athletes before and after they compete, she says she hopes to identify what is leading to these complications – which mirror the symptoms she frequently sees in the hospital from patients after a heart attack or a period of unconsciousness – and how best to treat them. This analysis could lead to a better understanding of when to remove a breathing tube from a regular patient suffering from similar complications and discharge them from the ER.
The long-time triathlete and SCUBA diver from New England says she was hooked after her first lesson with Mr. Malaguti a year ago.
Dr. Heape, whom her husband says is the A-type personality in the relationship, says she was drawn to the intimate experience of experiencing the sea whilst training her mind to adjust to her body’s new surroundings. She is also diving to 25 metres deep now. “I’m enjoying the journey, and I’m really hoping that as time goes on that number will get deeper,” she said from Lastovo.
Depth of their diving
People drawn to freediving and spearfishing all grapple with their innate ability hold their breath while striving to go deeper and see more. Here’s how long the people interviewed for this story have stayed underwater and at what depth.
Diver
Depth (metres)
Breathhold
Fox Heape, 7,
1.5 metres
45 sec.
10 m
Stephen Heape, 43,
16 metres
3 min. 45 sec.
20
30
Kelly Heape, 42,
30 metres
4 min. 10 sec.
3 min.
40
Chris Samson, 34,
32 metres
50
60
Roberta Cenedese,
56, 60 metres
6 min.
(in pool}
70
80
90
6 min.
Luca Malaguti, 34,
91 metres
100
john sopinski/the globe and mail
Diver
Depth (metres)
Breathhold
Fox Heape, 7,
1.5 metres
45 sec.
10 m
Stephen Heape, 43,
16 metres
3 min. 45 sec.
20
30
Kelly Heape, 42,
30 metres
4 min. 10 sec.
3 min.
40
Chris Samson, 34,
32 metres
50
60
Roberta Cenedese,
56, 60 metres
6 min.
(in pool}
70
80
90
6 min.
Luca Malaguti, 34,
91 metres
100
john sopinski/the globe and mail
Diver
Depth (metres)
Breathhold
Fox Heape, 7,
1.5 metres
45 sec.
10 m
Stephen Heape, 43,
16 metres
3 min. 45 sec.
20
30
Kelly Heape, 42,
30 metres
4 min. 10 sec.
3 min.
40
Chris Samson, 34,
32 metres
50
60
Roberta Cenedese,
56, 60 metres
6 min.
(in pool}
70
80
90
6 min.
Luca Malaguti, 34,
91 metres
100
john sopinski/the globe and mail