Italian freediving legend Umberto Pelizzari was a featured speaker at this weekend’s Blue Wild Ocean Adventure Expo in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Audience members were treated to videos of Pelizzari breaking the No Limits Absolute Variable Weight record of 150 meters/492 feet in 1999, as well as of him freediving with dolphins.
Pelizzari talked about breaking an eardrum during a warmup dive the day before his No Limits world record attempt and doing the dive anyway.
While he hung up his competitive freediving fins in 2001, that doesn’t mean Pelizzari doesn’t like to go deep anymore. He still spearfishes regularly with friends, although finding a fish to spear is generally a fringe benefit.
“I more like my relationship with depth than spearing a fish,” he told the audience.
Nowadays, Pelizzari teaches freediving, writes books and works on video documentaries.
He spoke about diving with sperm whales off of Mauritius, and how the sonar clicks from sperm whales are completely different from humpback whales’ clicks.
Among the audience questions he tackled were how he prepared himself mentally for his world record attempts, and whether he prefers freediving with bi-fins or monofins.
For more info on him, check out Pelizzari’s website at http://www.umbertopelizzari.com or find him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pelizzari.umberto and Twitter at https://twitter.com/upelizzari.
