Dolphins
Mayol’s fascination with dolphins started in 1955 when he was working as a commercial diver at an aquarium in Miami, Florida. There he met a female dolphin called Clown and formed a close bond with her. Imitating Clown, he learned how to hold his breath longer and how to behave and integrate himself underwater. It is the dolphins that became the foundation of Mayol’s life philosophy of Homo Delphinus.
L’Homo Delphinus (1983, published in English as Homo Delphinus – The dolphin within man) – Throughout his book Mayol expounds his theories about man’s relationship with the sea: Does man really have an aquatic origin? How can man re-awaken his dormant mental and spiritual faculties and the physiological mechanisms from the depths of his psyche and genetic make-up to develop the potential of his aquatic origins, to become a Homo Delphinus?
Jacques Mayol predicted that, within a couple of generations, some people would be able to dive to 200m and hold their breath for up to ten minutes. Today the no-limits record stands at 214m (Herbert Nitsch, June 2007). French Stéphane Mifsud holds the record for Static Apnea at 11 minutes and 35 seconds (June 2009). German Tom Sietas holds the record for static apnea on pure oxygen at 22 minutes and 22 seconds (June 2012).
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Famous quotes containing the word dolphins:
“headland beyond stormy headland plunging like dolphins through the
gray sea-smoke
Into pale sea, look west at the hill of water: it is half the
planet: this dome, this half-globe, this bulging
Eyeball of water,”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)