From My Fin & Tonic Column
Travel & Underwater Adventures
Welcome to Fin & Tonic, my monthly column for PescaSub & Apnea, a leading magazine for freediving enthusiasts. In each issue, I share personal stories of freediving, underwater exploration, and global travel, highlighting the adventures, challenges, and discoveries that shape life beneath the surface. From Blue Hole dives in Dahab to unique ocean experiences around the world, these articles capture the thrill, skill, and mindset of a professional freediver, offering inspiration for both athletes and ocean lovers alike.
My Dahab
By Simona Auteri | October 2025
Ten years ago, if someone had told me I’d leave London because of a pandemic, move to a dusty, hippie village on the Red Sea, and start freediving competitively, setting records along the way, I would have laughed out loud. Life, however, is unpredictable and creative. When I discovered freediving by chance in 2018, I somehow realized that the life I had known — full of rational choices — would change. I felt drawn to an invisible current pulling me farther than I had ever imagined.
Autumn 2020 fell heavy over London, the air sharp and thick with wool-like clouds. All I dreamed of was being in the water. In November, my friends from Apnea Revolution UK organized a trip to Dahab: ten days of freediving workshops with Gus Kreivenas, athlete, coach, and founder of the new Touchdown School. Gus’s story was legendary in our club — a Lithuanian welder, used to the dust of London construction sites, discovered freediving with us, then decided to leave everything to teach in Sharm El Sheikh alongside Marco Nones. He trained, competed, and eventually reached 130m in VWT. Later, he competed at Vertical Blue in the Bahamas — the “Wimbledon of Freediving” — hitting 105m with a monofin. Back in Dahab, he rebuilt his coaching career full-time.
My friends were obsessed with him. I looked at his social media posts and asked skeptically, “Are you sure he’s that good?” They were 100% convinced.
From the airplane window, Sinai shimmered like an invitation. I had no expectations, but I was ready.
Dahab was wild and golden, the wind blowing away London and the pandemic. The Blue Hole was sacred ground — a magnet for freedivers: Bedouins in white galabeyas, European girls in bikinis, sculpted athletes in black wetsuits, Egyptian voices and noisy goats. Chaotic, romantic, and incredibly alive.
Touchdown, Gus’s school, had just started on the roof of a seaside restaurant, among dust and dreams. Gus, full of energy, was friendly with my peers, but I was new, and he observed me from afar. One morning, during a warm-up dive, he asked me to go to -30m and exhale all the air I could. I did it without understanding why, and when I surfaced, Gus was cheering — I had just demonstrated exhalation beyond residual volume. From that moment, energy exploded; I felt strong, connected, and ready, and training took off.
Then, an accident changed everything in an instant. During the pandemic, we were used to cleaning our diving equipment with disinfectant spray. Without thinking, I used it on my nose before exercises. Soon after, during a dive at the Blue Hole, I emerged struggling to breathe; the disinfectant had entered my sinuses. Acute discomfort lasted five days — the entire workshop. Gus told me not to worry: I could return anytime to complete my course. I went back to London defeated.
At Christmas 2020, another lockdown hit Europe. Just before borders closed, I booked a last-minute flight to Dahab, planning to stay two weeks.
Back in Dahab, I resumed training with Gus at the Blue Hole: the silence of the deep blue, the roughness of the rope against my hands, the colorful reef fish, and Gus’s laughter greeted me. Within a few days, I reached -60m for the first time. By February 2021, I reached -73m with my old, slightly cracked monofin — and I laughed, amazed at how a worn fin could take me so deep.
A local competition was announced for April 2021. Curious, excited, and a little reckless, I canceled another flight and signed up. My dives hit 67, 68, and 69m in monofin, finishing second behind French athlete Alice Modolo. Two weeks had become four months, and I was competing alongside people I had only admired on social media.
I stayed, letting life unfold. I found a home and friends, shared stories and training sessions, nights under desert stars, and sunrises and sunsets over the sea. I fell in love — with people, moments, the rhythm of life that only Dahab seemed to offer. I could have left and felt complete, but I wasn’t ready. There were so many sunsets to bid farewell to, new depths to explore, and stories to live.
