Mandy Buckley

It reads like a story from a film so far. Mandys obsession with mermaids took her on an adventure with some people we don't mention that much up here ;-) She basically won a competition that was looking for the best potential female freediver from a group of applicants that had never tried it before. Her previous Scuba experience in cold dark quarries and comfort in the water gave her that prize. Mandy the Mermaid was born!!!

When I met her a while later she was caged in a little square box in Crewe surrounded by oxygen cannisters and respirators, with only enough water to keep her scales wet! Luckily we saved her from her 3 hour, 67 dive warm up routine to get to a measly 2 1/2 lengths and dragged her as far away from the Watford gap as we could!! It paid off and after a bit of fine tuning (it feels like a lot the amount of time it takes her to believe me its a good idea to change some things lol) she now just turns up at the occasional competition, does a bit of yoga and stretching then opens up a six pack of woopass and wrenches the UK records from whoever may have them at the time :-)

Easy peasy.

The future is?......... bright, I am having several of the 'honestly, its a good idea this' conversations to try and get her into the 145 club by the end of this year, beginning of next.Putting her face into the water and holding her breath does not compute at the moment. What sort of a Mermaid is that I hear you say!!! Mandy is doing her 3* and 4* with us soon. Maybe then :-)

p.s. she doesn't know about getting into the 145 club yet so if you see her before me tell her its a good idea.