‘‘In the silence, it is the most perfect blue I have ever seen. If my goggles weren’t already overflowing with water I might even weep’: Learning to freedive on the sparkling French Riviera with a five-time World Champion

Not many people are introduced to a sport by its World Champion. Arthur Guérin-Boëri — the most titled French freediver in history — picks me up from the glamorous Anantara Plaza Hotel in Nice, and drives us along the coast to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. The refurbished 19th century jewel is centrally located next to the entrance of Nice’s Place Massena, on one of the famous stretches of seafront real estate. For Arthur, the serene waters of Cap-Ferrat are his workplace. Aside from being one of the wealthiest locations on earth, it is the spiritual home of modern freediving. ‘Like Le Grand Bleu,’ he adds, referring to Luc Besson’s cult 1988 film, which was shot on location here and popularised freediving for a generation (including for Arthur). As in Le Grand Bleu, we will spend the afternoon descending into the depths, with Arthur guiding us through Anantara’s magnificent half-day experience: The World of Silence. Unlike the film, there will be no pugnacious rivalries (joining us is another journalist, and we get on amicably).

In the car boot are all the essentials. Though in truth, there aren’t that many. Unlike scuba diving, freediving relies on very little except a wet suit, goggles, and your own lungs, and if the weather were a little better, says Arthur, ‘the wetsuit wouldn’t be essential.’ The idea is to descend slowly from a buoy while holding onto a rope and a single breath. The act of freediving has been chronicled throughout history, from the Ancient Greeks to the mysterious Ama divers in Japan (my grandfather practiced, without knowing it, as a sponge diver in Cyprus). Today, it is a competitive sport, and through his mastery of dynamic apnea, Arthur has become world champion five times. Born in Nice, the towering 40-year-old is reviving the spirit of Cocteau through his adventures around the globe, and is the subject of Sunny Boy, an award-winning documentary that depicts his perilous endeavours diving beneath ice to break a record. When I ask him about his occupation, he compares it to being an artist: ‘It helps me detach from the world,’ he tells me. Arthur is also the first person to free dive 300 metres. Our itinerary today is considerably more basic.

We arrive at La Plage de Passable. ‘Better than passable, eh?’ Arthur quips. We appreciate his sense of humour; neither I nor my companion has ever dived without scuba gear before, and the reality of being submerged so deep on a single breath becomes vaguely terrifying. But we’re well assured. ‘Trust me,’ he says, ‘freediving is incredibly safe. It’s all in your mind.’

A few feet from where the crystal clear water tempts us are a row of sunbeds. Here, the world champion will teach us his personal apnoea method. How long do we think we can hold our breath? I reply 30 seconds — at a push. ‘I’m going to surprise you,’ Arthur continues. As we close our eyes, he talks us through a series of box breathing exercises (in, hold, out, hold, repeat) for retaining oxygen in our lungs. Finally, after 30 minutes, it’s obvious we’re all managing our breathing better. But when we conduct a final test, Arthur reads my time: I’m up to 3 minutes. Unthinkable. It felt like 40 seconds. My companion, a pro swimmer, hits 3 minutes 30 seconds.

Drowsy from the oxygen control, the gentle sound of waves threatens to lull me into a deep sleep. When I open my eyes, I see a small boat docked nearby; it will carry us to our dive spot. ‘I’ve never needed to meditate,’ Arthur notes. He explains that he is regularly invited by large French companies as an inspirational speaker and to teach his breathing methods. ‘They want to help their employees combat stress. Apnea is becoming wellness.’ He adds a few words of encouragement for us rookies: ‘And what we are doing on this beach is harder than anything you will do in the water.’

Joining us on the boat is Gilles Gabardini, a marine researcher and tech diver, who is in charge of our safety. He’s also the image of Alain Delon in La Piscine. There’s no question Gilles knows what he is doing, and he carefully runs us through protocol as we are dropped off at a secluded section of the bay. He prepares the buoy and — now zipped tightly into our wetsuits — we step into the temptingly cool water and grasp onto it. Bobbing out in the sea, I start to feel incredibly lucky. From a distance, the painted houses of Villefranche dot the hills like tropical birds. But the best sights are beneath us. We begin.

Recalling Arthur’s exercises, I slowly inflate my stomach, then chest, and when I feel ready, I find the rope and submerge my head… and straight back to the surface.

‘Keep trying and you’ll get it,’ Arthur says, encouragingly. The first few times, my goggles become flooded with water — the usual problem. ‘It’s your mustache,’ Gilles laughs, offering me some obvious, yet revelatory, information. After a moment’s respite (and some moustache management), again, a descent — each time going a little further. Time moves quickly beneath the surface. When I float up again, Arthur and Gilles offer my companion and I more guidance. On my fourth descent, I get it.

The world of the surface vanishes. Six metres down, those colourful hills of Cap-Ferrat are shrouded by a mysterious deep marine blue. In the silence, it is the most perfect blue I have ever seen. If my goggles weren’t already overflowing with water, I might even weep a bit. On a single breath, unperturbed by the weight of scuba diving equipment, I feel light and free. It is otherworldly down there, and the reason Arthur refers to it as a ‘giant swimming pool’.

I continue — grabbing the rope, descending, equalising, and sometimes glaring up at the surface. Arthur follows me down. For fleeting moments, and perhaps because of the rising CO² in my body, I get a slight transcendental hit. The sun pierces the top layer and I am transfixed by rays of light that shimmer with the brilliance of a cut diamond, further down to where it gets purple-ish, cold, and perhaps a little more testy.

My anxieties melt away. There’s no time to cling on to problems at home — that late write-through, an argument, a number of things left unsaid — when you’re preoccupied with your breathing. For however brief that moment was, it was one of total bliss. I count 1, 2, 3… and try to beat my previous best and then, when my brain’s survival instincts become impossible to ignore, I launch back up to the surface.

‘You still had 90% of your oxygen,’ Arthur explains. ‘What you feel is your brain giving early warning signs. This should encourage — not panic you.’ The thing is, I wasn’t panicking; at no point did any of this feel unsafe. I hurried each ensuing dive into the great blue, in search of the same feeling of bliss. The overwhelming calm stayed with me long after the small boat collected us, after we docked at the Plage de Passable, and even as Arthur dropped me off at the Anantara Plaza. At home in London, Arthur’s breathing exercises have become helpful during stressful episodes. I try to practise his apnea method at least twice a week. ‘The more you dive, the better you’ll be,’ he wrote on a small certificate. Naturally, I’m keen to do it again.

At the hotel, I ran into another guest who’d just returned from a château vineyard experience. We’d spoken briefly at dinner the night before. ‘How was the diving?’ she asked. ‘Thrilling?’ Oddly enough, I replied, I had rarely felt so relaxed.

When a few days later, President Macron and his wife Brigitte were photographed staying at the hotel, I wondered whether they, too, would have chosen the stillness below Cap-Ferrat or opted for a château vineyard. Perhaps it would do the President some good, all things considered.

Freediving isn’t for everyone. But as Arthur put it that afternoon: ‘In the great blue, we escape the world and find there’s only one thing to confront: ourselves.’

Rooms at Anantara Plaza Nice Hotel, on Nice’s boardwalk, start at €350 a night; the half-day ‘World of Silence’ freediving experience is €1,400 per person or €1,200 for two — with group dives of up to four people available