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The 7 best documentaries you have to see in the fall

<ul class="summary-list"><li>RMS Titanic Inc. was founded by an unlikely cohort of adventurers in the late 1980s.</li><li>The beleaguered company has the exclusive right to salvage artifacts from the wreck of the Titanic.</li></ul><p>The days-long saga of the search for the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.insider.com/missing-titanic-tourist-sub-everything-we-know-so-far-2023-6">submersible that went missing en route to the Titanic wreck site</a> has focused international attention on a cottage industry dedicated to exploiting the remains of the RMS Titanic for profit.</p><p>The Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, lost contact with the surface last Sunday morning en route to the wreck site nearly 13,000 feet below the surface of the North Atlantic. After a massive search effort, the Coast Guard announced Thursday that it had <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.insider.com/titanic-sub-had-catastrophic-loss-of-pressure-chamber-coast-guard-2023-6">found a debris field indicating Titan had imploded</a>. The vessel's <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.insider.com/passengers-titan-submersible-dead-oceangate-titanic-2023-6">five passengers are presumed to be dead</a>, according to a statement from OceanGate Expeditions.</p><p>The Everett, Washington-headquartered company charged thrill-seeking tourists $250,000 a head for the chance to visit the wreck.</p><p>"You can follow in Jacques Cousteau's footsteps and become an underwater explorer," OceanGate <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230622041846/https://oceangateexpeditions.com/"><u>promised customers</u></a>. "This is your chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary."</p><p>As the 111-year-old wreck of Titanic morphed into a lucrative cultural touchstone, accelerated by the 1997 James Cameron blockbuster, OceanGate was far from the first company to try cashing in.</p><p>That title belongs to a company little-known outside the close-knit community of amateur Titanic historians and enthusiasts: RMS Titanic Inc.</p><h2>One company effectively controls access to the Titanic</h2><p>Like OceanGate, which <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.heraldnet.com/news/boeing-uw-and-nasa-deny-design-partnerships-with-oceangate/"><u>appears to have inflated its ties with research institutions</u></a> and disregarded repeated safety warnings, RMS Titanic Inc. has a checkered past and a vested interest in profiting from the famous disaster.</p><p>Led in its early days by an unlikely group that included a producer of "People's Court," an agent for a dwarf-tossing act in Southern comedy clubs, and a man who wanted to pierce the hull of the Titanic to look for diamonds within, RMS Titanic Inc. is near the center of the now-concluded human drama on the North Atlantic.</p><p>The company occupies a unique position: It is the only entity legally allowed to salvage items from the wreckage. OceanGate was required to certify to a federal judge that its expeditions would not infringe on that right. OceanGate also has links with two people who have deep ties to RMS Titanic Inc.</p><p>On board OceanGate's submersible was French explorer <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.emgroup.com/team/paul-henry-ph-nargeolet/"><u>Paul-Henri Nargeolet</u></a>, who has made dozens of dives to the wreck, including at least four as a pilot of OceanGate's submersible, called Titan. Nargeolet was also RMS Titanic Inc.'s director of underwater research, according to the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.emgroup.com/team/paul-henry-ph-nargeolet/">company website,</a> as well as a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.94665/gov.uscourts.vaed.94665.224.0.pdf">former board member</a>. And OceanGate employs an attorney, David Concannon, who has twice represented RMS Titanic Inc. in federal court.</p><p>RMS Titanic Inc. did not respond to questions about its ties to OceanGate, but Concannon told a federal judge <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://ecf.vaed.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_multidocs.pl?caseid=115575&amp;arr_de_seq_nums=4216583&amp;magic_num=&amp;pdf_header=&amp;hdr=&amp;pdf_toggle_possible=&amp;caseid=115575&amp;zipit=&amp;magic_num=&amp;arr_de_seq_nums=4216583&amp;got_warning=&amp;create_roa=&amp;create_appendix=&amp;bates_format=&amp;dkt=&amp;got_receipt=1"><u>last year</u></a> that the companies are distinct entities with "no relationship." Nargeolet participated in OceanGate dives as a "guest of OceanGate," Concannon added, not as an RMS Titanic Inc. employee.</p><h2>The odd origins of RMS Titanic Inc.</h2><p>After oceanographer Robert Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, an improbable crew of businessmen came together to attempt to salvage artifacts from the wreck with profit in mind.</p><p>The group, which would eventually incorporate as RMS Titanic Inc., included <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2000/09/01/rms-titanic-fires-exec-who-led-troubled-journey/"><u>former "dwarf-tossing" agent</u></a> G. Michael Harris, a smack-talking undersea adventurer who says he's been called a pirate so many times he tattooed the Jolly Roger on his shoulder, according to a 2019 interview.</p><p>"People's Court" producer <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_Museum_(Branson,_Missouri)#:~:text=The%20Titanic%20Museum%20Attraction%20is,located%20in%20Pigeon%20Forge%2C%20Tennessee."><u>John Joslyn,</u></a> Nargeolet, Ohio concert promoter Joe Marsh and Arnie Geller, who contemplated <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/2000/08/14/Titanic-salvage-wont-penetrate-hull/9654966225600/"><u>sawing through the hull</u></a> of the Titanic to look for a reputed $300 million in diamonds presumed to be in the ship's safe, were also key members of the partnership. (Joslyn, along with his "People's Court" colleague Doug Llewelyn, was <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-11-24-fi-24313-story.html">one of the minds behind the greatest duds in the history of TV hype</a>: Geraldo Rivera's opening of Al Capone's vault.)</p><p>Through the 1990s, the group brought thousands of artifacts to the surface, to the consternation of some, including Ballard, who believed the wreck should remain untouched as a memorial to the more than 1,500 people who perished after the Titanic struck an iceberg in 1912.</p><p>Meanwhile, some members of the partnership, notably Marsh, were vocal about their desire to capitalize on the wreck.</p><p>''We all know there are billions of dollars down there under the water,'' Marsh told the New York Times in 1999. ''It's like sitting on a gold mine.''</p><p>Precedent supported the idea that shipwreck loot was fair game to salvage and sell. But in the eyes of some, the people behind RMS Titanic Inc. were <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/05/29/titanic-marconi-telegraph"><u>high-tech grave robbers.</u></a></p><p>A federal judge largely agreed, ruling that the company was <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.noaa.gov/gc-international-section/rms-titanic-salvage">not allowed to sell</a> any artifacts it had salvaged except as a complete collection open to public exhibition — severely limiting one potential moneymaking avenue.</p><p>Inside the partnership, tensions mounted. In 1999, Geller, Harris, Marsh, and Joslyn spearheaded a hostile takeover that replaced then-CEO George Tulloch, a BMW dealer who had <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.courant.com/2004/02/03/titanic-salvager-dies-at-age-59/"><u>raised a 20-ton section</u></a> of the Titanic's hull to the surface. The next year, Harris was forced out over allegations of embezzling company funds; he was later embroiled in a legal dispute with the company after he used four artifacts raised from the Titanic to collateralize a loan to fund a "Duck Dynasty" traveling exhibit.</p><p>The<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr18943.htm"> SEC fined Joslyn, Marsh</a>, and four other investors $405,000 in 2004 for making "materially false and misleading statements" during the takeover. The agency also sanctioned Harris, but declined to fine him "based on his sworn representations and other documents and information submitted to the Commission concerning his financial condition."</p><p>Geller and Tulloch have since died. In a text message, Harris said that "after this week," he was "too fucking tired" to respond to a request for comment. "Obviously you're speaking with someone who doesn't like me very much," he added.</p><p>In an interview, Marsh said he disagreed with the outcome of the SEC investigation.</p><p>Joslyn, who sold his shares in RMS Titanic, Inc. in the early 2000s and now operates two Titanic museums, said he does not reflect fondly on his experience with the company.</p><p>"I worked with a lot of movie and TV people, and I have never seen so much underhandedness going on in my life," he said. "Nobody had any scruples."</p><h2>RMS Titanic Inc. takes its show on the road</h2><p>Throughout the 2000s, RMS Titanic Inc. devoted itself to establishing traveling exhibits of the artifacts it recovered from the wreck. It founded two permanent displays, in Las Vegas and Orlando, and branched out into other immersive traveling exhibits — including a controversial "Bodies Revealed" exhibit featuring plasticized human remains — that skirt the line between museums and entertainment.</p><p>The success of Bodies Revealed was a temporary shot in the arm for the company, then operating as publicly-traded Premier Exhibitions. But starting in 2007, its share price plummeted from $18.62 to a low of $0.56. In 2008, the company's largest shareholder <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/796764/000095015208010212/l34728cprrn14a.htm">executed a boardroom coup</a> that successfully forced out then-CEO Geller and replaced him with hedge fund manager <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/2010/11/grand_rapids_bar_owner_mark_se.html"><u>Mark Sellers.</u></a></p><p>But revenues never recovered, and after a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://case.stretto.com/cases/rms%20titanic%20inc/premier%20exhibitions/docket%20no.%2082.pdf"><u>failed "Saturday Night Live: The Experience" exhibit in New York</u></a>, the company declared bankruptcy in 2016. The pandemic further <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4535898/666/rms-titanic-inc-etc-v-the-wrecked-and-abandoned-vessel-etc/"><u>hammered ticket sales</u></a> to RMS Titanic, Inc.'s permanent exhibits of Titanic artifacts. The company, which was taken private in 2018 by a consortium of private equity firms including Apollo Global Management, last year <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.emgroup.com/explore-titanic-nfts/"><u>unveiled a Titanic NFT</u></a> to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the ship's sinking.</p><p>In a Tuesday letter, RMS Titanic Inc. notified the federal court overseeing its access to the wreck site that OceanGate's submersible had gone missing.</p><p>"With regret, I write to advise the Court of disturbing news from the wreck site of the TITANIC," president Jessica Sanders wrote. "A submersible, owned and operated by OceanGate Expeditions, and carrying five persons on board, has gone missing while diving off the wreck."</p><p>In addition to Nargeolet, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani-British billionaire Shazada Dawood, and Dawood's 19 year-old son, Suleman were on the sub.</p><p>In an interview with the New York Times last year, Rush <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.insider.com/oceangate-ceo-stockton-rush-titanic-sub-profit-2023-6"><u>defended trying to make money from </u></a>the Titanic ruins.</p><p>"The folks who don't like anybody making money sort of miss the fact that that's the only way anything gets done in this world is if there is profit or military need," he said.</p>

Dwarf-tossing, 'Duck Dynasty,' and Al Capone's vault: Inside the strange company that effectively controls access to the Titanic 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>I've traveled around <keyword id="14313332" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="baja-california-sur" source="Orion">Baja California Sur</keyword> three times a year for over two decades as a <keyword id="11896628" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="travel" source="Orion">travel</keyword> writer.</li><li>Here's my complete guide to the region, from where to stay, places to eat, activities, and more.</li></ul><p>At the very bottom of Mexico's <keyword id="14313333" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="baja-california" source="Orion">Baja California</keyword> peninsula lies <a href="https://www.visitmexico.com/en/baja-california-sur" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Baja California Sur</a>, and within that southernmost region is <a href="https://www.visitloscabos.travel/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Los Cabos</a>, which includes the famed city of Cabo San Lucas, as well as San José del Cabo, where Los Cabos International Airport is.</p><p>Baja California Sur is also where La Paz, Todos Santos, and Cabo Pulmo are, which are nearby and wonderful to visit. The whole region is an excellent place to indulge your outdoor adventure spirit, and it's also one of the world's most luxury-packed destinations.</p><p>Think food prepared by famous chefs juxtaposed with the best street corn (and tacos) you've ever eaten, all in a place where the sun shines just about every day of the year.</p><p>I learned about Baja California Sur and Los Cabos about 30 years ago when I moved to Southern California from the East Coast.</p><p>Since my first visit, when I went scuba diving with hammerheads, sea turtles, and playful seals, and snorkeled with humongous whale sharks in the Sea of Cortez, Los Cabos and Baja California Sur have become my happy places.</p><p>For more than 20 years, I've visited the region about three times a year — partly because my work as a travel journalist takes me there as an expert on the region and partly because it's where I indulge my favorite adventurous pastime — scuba diving. After all, it's only a 2.5-hour nonstop flight from my home in Los Angeles.</p><p>When I first visited, there were only a few large resorts in the Tourist Corridor between San José del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas along the Sea of Cortez, and virtually none on the Pacific side of that tip.</p><p>La Paz, north of those cities on the peninsula's east coast, was still a sleepy town with a few small hotels, but even then, it was known for its scuba-diving centers and sportfishing opportunities.</p><p>Today, tourism is the main driver to the economy across all Los Cabos and Baja California Sur, and countless resorts, hotels, restaurants, bars, and adventure companies have opened and are at the ready to give visitors from around the world a unique experience.</p><p>All are centered on the amazing Sea of Cortez, the place Jacques Cousteau famously called "the aquarium of the world," as well as the desert that surrounds it.</p><p>Here is my ultimate insider's guide to help you plan your own adventure to Cabo San Lucas, San José del Cabo, and the other cities in Baja California Sur.</p><h3>→ <a href="https://insider.com/how-to-get-to-cabo-san-lucas-baja-california-mexico" target="_blank" rel="noopener">I visit Cabo San Lucas and Baja California Sur every year. Here are my tips on getting around, from the best airport to whether you really need a rental car.</a></h3><h3>→ <a href="https://insider.com/where-to-stay-in-cabo-san-lucas-mexico-best-hotels" target="_blank" rel="noopener">I've stayed in Cabo San Lucas' most beautiful hotels. Here are my 11 favorite places whether you want an all-inclusive party or a remote beach villa.</a><a href="https://insider.com/where-to-stay-in-Cabo-San-Lucas-best-hotels"></a><a href="https://insider.com/where-to-stay-in-Cabo-San-Lucas-best-hotels"></a></h3><h3>→ <a href="https://insider.com/best-restaurants-where-to-eat-in-cabo-san-lucas-mexico" target="_blank" rel="noopener">I travel for a living and some of my favorite food is in Cabo San Lucas and Baja California Sur. Here are 12 restaurants where you should actually eat.</a></h3><h3>→ <a href="https://insider.com/things-to-do-in-cabo-san-lucas-mexico" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cabo San Lucas is a paradise for the outdoors — here are 8 adventures for an adrenaline rush, plus the best 8 beaches to relax in the sun</a><a href="https://insider.com/things-to-do-in-cabo-san-lucas"></a></h3><h3>→ <a href="https://insider.com/things-to-know-before-visiting-cabo-san-lucas-mexico" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Everything you need to know before visiting Cabo San Lucas and Baja California Sur — weather, etiquette, and more</a><a href="https://insider.com/things-to-know-before-visiting-cabo-san-lucas"></a></h3>

I'm a travel reporter who's visited Mexico's sun-soaked Los Cabos peninsula for over 20 years. Here's my ultimate guide to Cabo San Lucas and Baja California.

I've stayed in Cabo San Lucas' most beautiful hotels. Here are my 11 favorite places whether you want an all-inclusive party or a remote beach villa.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>A group of friends and amateur divers solved one of WWII's most enduring mysteries in June 2018.</li><li>New England-based Nomad Exploration Team found the USS Eagle 56, a patrol boat sunk by a German u-boat just five miles off the coast of Maine.</li><li>The wreck was classified as an act of war by the US Navy, but the boat was never found and remained a mystery until the Nomad team got involved.</li><li>Business Insider spoke to two crew members - a meat truck driver and a correctional officer - about the discovery. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul><p>The USS Eagle 56 was only five miles off the coast of Maine when it exploded.</p><p>The World War I-era patrol boat split in half, then slipped beneath the surface of the North Atlantic. The Eagle 56 had been carrying a crew of 62. Rescuers pulled 13 survivors from the water that day. It was April 23, 1945, just two weeks before the surrender of Nazi Germany.</p><p>The United States Navy classified the disaster as an accident, attributing the sinking to a blast in the boiler room. In 2001, that ruling was <a href="https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=6892">changed</a> to reflect the sinking as a deliberate act of war, perpetuated by German submarine U-853, a u-boat belonging to Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine.</p><p>Still, despite the Navy's effort to clarify the circumstances surrounding the sinking, the Eagle 56 lingered as a mystery. The ship had sunk relatively close to shore, but efforts to locate the wreck were futile for decades. No one could find the Eagle 56, a small patrol ship that had come so close to making it back home.</p><p>Then, a group of friends and amateur divers decided to try to find the wreck in 2014. After years of fruitless dives and intensive research, New England-based Nomad Exploration Team successfully located the Eagle 56 in June 2018.</p><p>Business Insider spoke to two crew members - meat truck driver Jeff Goodreau and Massachusetts Department of Corrections officer Donald Ferrara - about their discovery.</p><p>Goodreau and Ferrara, along with their crewmates Ryan King, Danny Allan, Bob Foster, Nate Garrett, Josh Cummings, and Mark Bowers, are featured in "The Hunt for Eagle 56," a Smithsonian Channel documentary series set to air at 9 p.m. on Sunday, September 22.</p><p>Goodreau works as a meat truck driver in Massachusetts. But diving has been his passion since the age of 18, after his employer hosted a number of scuba excursions.</p><p>"I was hooked from the first dive," Goodreau said. "It was really cool. I found out early shipwrecks are what I'm meant to do. I really believe that that's what I was put here to do, to find shipwrecks."</p><p>Ferrara said he was first sucked into the world of diving by watching famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau on television, as a kid.</p><p>Goodreau described becoming interested in pursuing "deeper and darker" dives as time went on; or, as Ferrara puts it, "crazier and stupider" underwater adventures. They became immersed in the world of technical diving, which National Association of Underwater Instructors <a href="https://www.naui.org/certifications/technical/">defines</a> as "a form of scuba diving that exceeds the typical recreational limits imposed on depth and immersion time (bottom time)." </p><p>King, Allan, and Goodreau first teamed up to find the Eagle 56 in 2014. The rest of the crew came together in the subsequent years. The Eagle 56 was an obvious choice for the for the Nomad team.</p><p>"I'm a shipwreck nerd, always have been," Goodreau said. "The Eagle 56 was always the shipwreck to find. That was the great ghost of New England. A lot of people looked for it. Nobody could find it."</p><p>But the Eagle 56 was never going to be an easy find. Goodreau described the ocean floor north of Cape Cod as a labyrinth of rocky mountains and canyons. The Eagle 56 was a "fairly small" boat. And, though the crew didn't know this at the time, it was lodged in a trench.</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/navy-veteran-at-dday-invasion-and-island-hopping-in-pacific-2019-6">Meet the Navy veteran who hit the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, and then went island-hopping in the Pacific</a></em></p><p>"It's kind of like the equivalent of dropping a soda can into canyon and putting on a blindfold and going and finding it, because you can't just look down and see it," Goodreau said. "Visibility's 10 feet. It's pitch black."</p><p>Even worse, the crew's expensive magnetometer ended up being somewhat of a bust, thanks to the undersea terrain.</p><p>"It turns out that the rocks off of Maine aren't only big, they're full of iron," Goodreau said. </p><p>Again and again, the crew would finish out a summer diving season empty-handed. They spent the winters intensively reading up on the sinking, trying to pinpoint the ship's coordinates. That research had an unintended side effect.</p><p>"You kind of get to know these guys," Goodreau said, of the Eagle 56 crew members.</p><p>Ferrara added that, as a Marine veteran, he feels an affinity for the crew members who died in the attack. He said that most of the men on board were quite young.</p><p>"They were lost for 73 years," he said.</p><p>But the team stuck with the search and, ultimately, found the wreck in June 2018. Goodreau and Ferrara say that, as a result, they've gotten to know plenty of relatives of the lost crew members.</p><p>The Nomad team members were even invited to the July 2019 <a href="https://www.citizentribune.com/news/local/osborne-accepts-purple-heart-on-late-brother-s-behalf/article_ffe54dc0-b219-11e9-abba-37c682ffe0a9.html">Purple Heart ceremony</a> for Seaman 1st Class James Cunningham, who died in the Eagle 56 sinking. Cunningham was 21-years-old at the time of the sinking. Goodreau and Ferrara say that Cunningham came from a family of Tennessee sharecroppers, and that he enlisted in the Navy when he was 18. Cunningham sent them his Navy paychecks so that they could buy a house, a property which the family still owns today.</p><p>Sadly, one group that the Nomad team will never be able to share their discovery with are the 13 survivors of sinking. They have all died.</p><p>"Some of the survivors were engineers," Goodreau said. "Some went to their graves feeling that people blamed them for the explosion." </p><p>The Nomad diving team will now search for the torpedo that took down the Eagle 56. And, in the meantime, they will remain cautious when diving in the area where the ship sank.</p><p>"You don't want to disturb them," Ferrara said. "You want to be very respectful, when you're there."</p>

How a meat truck driver driver helped solve one of WWII's most enduring mysteries

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Freediving Instructors International</span></p><p class="caption">Stepanek heading down for a world record.</p></div><p></p></div>Competitive freediving is a sport in which humans hold their breath and see how deep they can swim.</p>
<p>And when they do, strange things can happen, including losing color vision and becoming "drunk" off the nitrogen in the body.</p>
<p>While archaeological evidence suggests that <a href="https://www.aidainternational.org/freediving/history">freediving may date to the Stone Age</a>, it seems to enter public conversation for just two reasons, professional freediver Martin Stepanek told Business Insider: when someone breaks a world record or <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/32-year-old-brooklyn-man-dies-trying-to-set-american-free-diving-record-2013-11">when someone dies</a>.</p>
<p>With National Geographic's recent announcement that it will begin production on a potentially record-breaking freediving event with diver William Trubridge, we thought we'd dig deeper into what it feels like to take the plunge.</p>
<p>We recruited Stepanek, a 13-time freediving record-setter, to walk us through what it's like to dive hundreds of feet under water.</p>
<p><strong>Stepanek can hold his breath for over 8 minutes</strong> and was the first person to dive over 400 feet on a single breath, a feat few freedivers have accomplished.</p>
<p>Perhaps the weirdest thing about freediving is that anyone can do it. "It is something that our body is designed for," said Stepanek, the founder of <a href="http://www.freedivinginstructors.com/">Freediving Instructors International</a>. Because we share a common lineage with aquatic mammals, our bodies still have some of their aquatic adaptations, he said.</p>
<p>While neither Stepanek nor Business Insider recommends taking up freediving without the proper instruction, the truth is that almost anyone with the proper training can learn to hold their breath for at least 3 minutes. When swimming downward at 3 feet per second, a person could make it to 100 feet and back in a little over a minute.</p>
<p>When this happens to people in Stepanek's courses, they "realize they are capable of things they don't believe possible. It almost redefines the world for them," he said.</p>
<p>But don't jump into the Hudson just yet. "The important thing is to know how to use the reflex and to know the dangers that are out there," he said.</p>
<p>Still interested? Here's a list of just a few of the strange sensations you might encounter while taking the otherworldly plunge.</p>
<h2>1. Heart Slows</h2>
<p>Since you get only one breath, you have a finite supply of oxygen for your dive. This means that the name of the game is oxygen conservation. Luckily, your body already knows how to do this.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_left"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>YouTube/apneapatagonia</span></p><p class="caption">Stepanek begins a freedive.</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>When a human starts a freedive, just as when a whale does, the heart automatically begins to slow - a phenomenon known as the mammalian diving reflex. By slowing down the heart, the body conserves its precious oxygen.</p>
<p>Untrained divers may be able to lower their heartbeat by about 8% of their normal heart rate, said Stepanek.</p>
<p>Professional divers can summon this reflex in a few minutes and drop their heart rate by 50%, Stepanek said.</p>
<h2>2. An Elephant On Your Chest</h2>
<p>"The first and most significant [sensation] is the experience of pressure, not only on the chest but on the eardrums and sinuses," Stepanek said.</p>
<p>Thirty-three feet of seawater is the pressure equivalent of one atmosphere. This means that when you hit 33 feet your body is feeling twice the pressure it would at sea level. As a result, "your lungs will pretty much shrink to half of their size," Stepanek said.</p>
<p>"With my dives going over 400 feet, you can imagine how much they compress," said Stepanek, who likens it to an elephant stepping on your chest.</p>
<h2>3. Urge To Breathe ... Out</h2>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Martin Stepanek</span></p><p class="caption">Professional freediver Niki Stepanek checking out a reef in Hawaii.  </p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>If you try holding your breath, at some point - maybe about 45 seconds to a minute - you will feel the urge to breathe. Despite a common misconception, it is not for want of oxygen. The air we breathe out still contains about 16% oxygen, compared to the 21% oxygen air we breathe in.</p>
<p>Other factors are at play in the desire to breathe, and our body has many triggers that set off this desire.</p>
<p>The first trigger is an excess of carbon dioxide in our body, a waste gas from our cells that's expelled when we breathe out. "This urge to breathe works great on dry land, but does not work all that well under water because all that counts under water is the oxygen," Stepanek said.</p>
<p>Elite freedivers have to train extensively to ignore this urge.</p>
<h3>4. Urge to Breathe ... Again</h3>
<p>This time, it is not because of carbon dioxide.</p>
<p>When your lungs get small, which happens when you exhale, your body gets the signal to breathe in. However, the pressure from the ocean also causes your lungs to shrink up - their spongy texture can't stand up to the surrounding pressure.</p>
<p>At 66 feet under water, you are feeling three times the pressure and your lungs are a third the normal size.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_left"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Freediving Instructors International</span></p><p class="caption">Stepanek hanging with the dolphins.</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>"Your brain sees it as your lungs being exhaled," Stepanek said, and tells your body to breathe in and inflate the lungs.</p>
<h2>5. That Drunk Feeling</h2>
<p>At extreme depths, the nitrogen in the air we breathe becomes inebriating. Jacques Cousteau famously called it "the rapture of the deep." Scientifically called, "nitrogen narcosis," this sensation may<a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nitrogen%20narcosis"> feel like the rapture of a few martinis</a>.</p>
<p>As you dive deeper, the pressure on your body increases. This pressure pushes the nitrogen in your lungs into your bloodstream. The more pressure the diver is under, the more nitrogen gets absorbed by the body.</p>
<p>The nitrogen is especially well absorbed by fatty tissue, like the brain. When it gets into brain cells <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/416314/nitrogen-narcosis">the nitrogen overwhelms</a> them, impacting our thinking and ability to make decisions, essentially making us drunk.</p>
<h2>6. Sinking</h2>
<p>There is a point for every freediver at which they will no longer need to swim downward. They'll just sink.</p>
<p>The human body naturally floats in seawater. If you swim 5 feet down in the ocean, your body's natural tendency is to float to the surface.</p>
<p>However, at a certain depth, the weight of the water on your body causes it to sink. The depth at which the sinking begins varies depending on many things - among them, a freediver's swimming style.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>YouTube/flkitesurfer ricki</span></p><p class="caption">Stepanek sinks all the way down to the finish line.  In this case, almost 273 feet.</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>On a 400-foot dive for Stepanek, this sinking begins at about 110 feet. "So then I have about 300 feet of just taking the ride," he said.</p>
<h2>7. Temporarily Color Blindness</h2>
<p>Stepanek has trained himself to ignore the urge to breathe from carbon dioxide buildup or pressure, because neither gives him information on the most important factor: his oxygen level.</p>
<p>With every second that passes, the freediver uses up more precious oxygen. So how do they know when it's really time to breathe? Some go color blind.</p>
<p>"The parts of your eyes that monitor colors are very demanding on oxygen. When the level of oxygen drops, even a little bit, you're going to lose the color in your vision. So that could be one of the first signs," Stepanek said.</p>
<p>"I first lose the color in my vision. And to me it's like, OK, that's it," Stepanek said. Time to come up.</p>
<h2>8. Loss of Peripheral Vision</h2>
<p>But if he doesn't, the loss of color vision can be joined by a loss of peripheral vision - the ability to see to the right and left of what's in front of him.</p>
<p>"It's almost like tunnel vision," Stepanek said. "And that's kind of when I would be pushing my luck." When he can see only about 20 degrees of normal vision, Stepanek may start to see a flickering spot.</p>
<p>"Usually, that is a very bad sign. That would be followed by the tunnel closing completely and that would be unconsciousness," he said.</p>
<h2>9. Fingers And Toes Become Difficult To Move</h2>
<p>When the body's oxygen levels are dangerously low, hardly any oxygen gets to the fingers and toes. To conserve oxygen, the body has slowly been stealing it from the extremities and giving it to the vital organs.</p>
<p>On the swim back to the surface, Stepanek will feel a burning sensation in his arms and legs for the same reason.</p>
<h2>10. Surfacing Protocol</h2>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_left"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>YouTube/apneapatagonia</span></p><p class="caption">Back to the surface.</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>Obviously, it is important for divers to conserve enough oxygen to maintain consciousness and get themselves back to the surface. However, they also need some oxygen for what is perhaps the hardest task of the entire dive: the surfacing protocol. The inability to complete this protocol has led to the disqualification of more than one record-breaking dive.</p>
<p>The surfacing protocol is a series of tasks a competitive diver must complete within 15 seconds of reaching the surface. It consists of a series of three gestures, in order: taking off the mask, giving the "OK" signal with their hand, and saying, "I am OK."</p>
<p>Those required tasks are how judges test if the divers are fully coherent, said Stepanek. They might seem like menial tasks, but someone dangerously low on oxygen will be in a state of confusion and can easily mess them up. To encourage safety, divers who cannot complete all these signals, in order, are disqualified.</p>

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