Deep Quotes

“In a world of seven billion people, where every inch of land has been mapped, much of it developed, and too much of it destroyed, the sea remains the final unseen, untouched, and undiscovered wilderness, the planet’s last great frontier. There are no mobile phones down there, no e-mails, no tweeting, no twerking, no car keys to lose, no terrorist threats, no birthdays to forget, no penalties for late credit card payments, and no dog shit to step in before a job interview. All the stress, noise, and distractions of life are left at the surface. The ocean is the last truly quiet place on Earth.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“Underwater I hear the water coming to my body, I hear the sunlight penetrating the water.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“At three hundred feet, we are profoundly changed. The pressure at these depths is nine times that of the surface. The organs collapse. The heart beats at a quarter of its normal rate, slower than the rate of a person in a coma. Senses disappear. The brain enters a dream state. At six hundred feet down, the ocean’s pressure—some eighteen times that of the surface—is too extreme for most human bodies to withstand. Few freedivers have ever attempted dives to this depth; fewer have survived. Where humans can’t go, other animals can. Sharks, which can dive below six hundred and fifty feet, and much deeper, rely on senses beyond the ones we know. Among them is magnetoreception, an attunement to the magnetic pulses of the Earth’s molten core. Research suggests that humans have this ability and likely used it to navigate across the oceans and trackless deserts for thousands of years. Eight hundred feet down appears to be the absolute limit of the human body.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“Human blood has a chemical composition startlingly similar to seawater. An infant will reflexively breaststroke when placed underwater and can comfortably hold his breath for about forty seconds, longer than many adults. We lose this ability only when we learn how to walk.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“In a world of seven billion people, where every inch of land has been mapped, much of it developed, and too much of it destroyed, the sea remains the final unseen, untouched, and undiscovered wilderness, the planet’s last great frontier.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“When a man comes to the ocean, he exploits it and strips it,” she says. When a woman puts her hands in the ocean, that balance is restored. Manusanke explains that the ocean can always provide for humans if they gather from it in their natural forms. A person should take what he or she can carry, but no more. Otherwise, she says, eventually, there will be nothing left.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“At the ocean’s surface, the sun’s energy penetrates easily through the water. Deeper down, that energy fades until, at depths of around three thousand feet, there is no light. Longer-wavelength colors, like red and orange, are easiest for water molecules to absorb, and so they drop out first. The color red becomes invisible to the human eye at around fifty feet down; yellows disappear at around a hundred and fifty feet; greens at two hundred feet, and so on, ultimately leaving only stronger, shorter-wave colors like blue and purple. The”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“felt a sudden recognition, an instant and ineffable sense of knowing that I was in the presence of something extraordinarily powerful and intelligent.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“Sperm whale clicks—which are used for echolocation and communication, and max out at 236 decibels—can be heard several hundred miles away, and possibly around the globe. Sperm whales are the loudest animals on Earth. In air, a 236-decibel sound would be louder than two thousand pounds of TNT exploding two hundred feet away from you, and much louder than a space shuttle taking off from two hundred fifty feet away. In fact, 236 decibels is so loud that a sound of that intensity cannot exist in air. Above 194 decibels, sound waves turn into pressure waves.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“What stops the lungs from expanding is the musculature around the ribs, chest, and back. Through stretching and breathing exercises, freedivers develop up to 75 percent more lung capacity than the average person.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“It refers to a variety of physiological reflexes in the brain, lungs, and heart, among other organs, that are triggered the second we put our faces in water. The deeper we dive, the more pronounced the reflexes become, eventually spurring a physical transformation that protects our organs from imploding under the immense underwater pressure and turns us into efficient deep-sea-diving animals. Freedivers can anticipate these switches and exploit them to dive deeper and longer.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“Master Switch of Life,”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“Scientists have discovered that every cell in the human body also contains an electrical charge. Tibetan Buddhist monks who practice the Bön tradition of Tum-mo meditation have learned to focus these cellular charges to warm their bodies during bitterly cold winters. Researchers in England have discovered that by controlling the output of cellular charges in our bodies, humans can not only create heat but treat many chronic diseases.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“Scuba divers can make it to three hundred feet breathing mixed gases, but it takes years of training and is a logistical nightmare. The danger isn’t going down—although that certainly is dangerous—it’s coming back up. For a scuba diver, a one-hour plunge at two hundred feet breathing regular compressed air would require a ten-hour ascent to purge the deadly levels of nitrogen gas in the blood that accumulate on the way down. A three-hundred-foot ascent on compressed air would most likely kill you.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves

“It’s a little bit of rock that reminds us where we came from,” said Russell. If it is true, the iron-sulfur world theory suggests that life not only could have started in hydrothermal vents but that it had to have started there.”
― James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves