It's been a long time since I contributed to ScubaBoard. Yesterday I was looking in an internet search engine and found this thread which I started on Audrey Mestre. I don't recall why I began researching Audrey, but since that time I still have not read "The Dive.” All my research about Audrey was done on the web, with one important exception.
When I began to research the Audrey Mestre accident, what I discovered about it upset me greatly. One of the things I ran across was an interview with Tanya Streeter where questions were asked about the accident, so I knew she had a very strong opinion on the subject. I exchanged several email messages with Tanya about the incident and I finally decided to call her to make sure she was ok with discussing it. Although the part of Tanya's past where she trained with Pippin is sketchy and I did not ask her anything about it, I do know she quit training with Pippin because of his approach to freedive competition. I believe she also knew Audrey Mestre personally. Audrey's death came as a shock, but not a surprise to Tanya. She had predicted an accident of some kind, because of the way she was being pushed to break the “no limits” freediving record.
Post accident interviews of Pippin which I read showed he wanted Audrey’s dive in the record books, even though she did not survive it. Technically she had in fact, broken Tanya’s “no limits” freediving depth record, (don’t recall by how much) but of course she died in the process so the record was not given to her. More interviews later went on to say Pippin himself trained for and unofficially broke through the no limits record depth past 160m.
I don’t know Pippin, never knew Audrey and am only acquaintances with Tanya Streeter. Letting this issue rest for a period of time however, I have far less of a fiery passion for it. I emailed John Chatterton in the midst of my research on the subject, because he is good friends with James Cameron the proposed director of “The Dive,” and I asked him his opinion of the making of the movie amidst all the controversy. I am paraphrasing when I repeat what he said to me, but it was something to the effect of…. “Why shouldn’t Jim make the movie? In this case, it would not be his responsibility to make judgments about the subject mater.”
Tanya and Paul Streeter have had a baby girl “Tilly” since I first began writing about Audrey and I lost a friend to complications with Parkinson’s disease. Going through births and deaths changes a person’s focus, and to a great extent their priorities, but I have no doubt the Audrey Mestre accident will always be a very hurtful memory for Tanya, as it is for many other freedivers. My tendency to make judgments in the Mestre case has also changed, as feeling guilt about my limited visits to see my friend in the last year of his life; I can only imagine how a person like Pippin must feel, even if he presumes himself only remotely responsible for Audrey’s death.
My original passion for this story was born from the same place all my passions are born, and except for certain people and things where it is completely appropriate, passionate expressions have never served me well. Simply put, I get onto something, and it seems to reach me at a deep level – it is a blessing and a curse to feel things that way, and for the time I was involved in this story it was nearly as though I knew Audrey Mestre personally.
CB
