The dive platform on the Eighty2 sits at the waterline between the hulls. It is the specific architecture of the catamaran that makes it the finest platform for the water sports programme: the platform is sheltered from the chop by the two hulls on either side of it, at the level of the water rather than above it in the way the monohull’s stern is above the water, and accessible from the accommodation without the specific negotiation of getting down to the water that the monohull’s freeboard requires. Three steps from the companionway. The mask is on the hook beside the platform. The fins are in the net. The reef is below.
I freedive from the platform every morning that the anchorage allows it. Not the deep freediving of the competition athlete: the reef freediving of the person who wants to be in the water rather than above it, who wants the specific access to the marine environment that the five metres of the breath-hold descent provides and that the snorkel at the surface does not.
The platform makes this available in the specific form of the offshore boat’s unmediated access to the water: no shore to reach, no boat to take to the site, no briefing room, no rental equipment counter. The mask and the fins are on the platform and the reef is below and the morning is available. I go in.
What the Platform Provides
The dive platform is the equaliser between the certified diver and the member who has never freedived before. The scuba diver who wants the deep wall takes the tank from the rack and the regulator from the hook and enters from the platform for the dive that the CMAS programme I lead provides as the structured experience of the site.
The freediver who wants the reef at five metres takes the mask and the fins and enters from the platform for the dive that the reef provides at the depth the breath-hold makes accessible. The swimmer who wants the water enters from the platform for the swim. The platform does not distinguish between the levels of certification or experience or confidence. It is the door to the water, and the water is available to everyone aboard.
The freediving programme for first-timers begins on the platform: the breath work in the water at the platform’s edge before the first descent, the equalisation technique practiced in the first two metres before the deeper water is attempted, the specific quality of the first successful five-metre descent that the platform’s proximity to the reef makes available as the reward for the morning’s first session.
I have been alongside every member who has done their first freedive from the platform of the Eighty2. The moment that the five metres is reached and the reef is at arm’s length and the breath-hold is still comfortable is the moment that the platform made possible. It is three steps from the cabin and it changes what the reef means.
