FREEDIVING IN UTILA, HONDURAS | RACHEL + A GLIMPSE INTO HER WORLD

7/25/2025

Rachel is a beautiful friend of mine. We crossed paths while we both were living on Utila, Rachel coming from the UK and I coming from Florida. It is crazy how living on a tiny island creates friendships and connections that crosses countries and remain so sweet and meaningful even with distance. I treasured my time with Rachel, whether it was free diving Utila's incredible reefs, watching sunsets from our friend's sailboat, or singing (Rachel is also an amazing singer / songwriter, a woman of many talents).

I asked Rachel to share a bit of her story. Her words will inspire you step out of the box, perhaps hop on a plane, get your feet wet, and reach depths you wouldn't have expected to reach.

Could you share the story of how you fell in love with free diving?

It was a bit of a journey to get to the point of teaching freediving! But I first fell in love with being underwater when I was 16 and learnt how to scuba dive in Malta, I remember feeling like I was in a scene from avatar, flying between mountains. When I was 18 and in Thailand, I tried an introduction to freediving course on Koh Tao. I thought it was pretty cool but a bit of a strange concept, I definitely wasn’t quite convinced just yet. I just didn't understand why you'd go up and down a line without seeing any coral or fish. After university, I worked in marine conservation in different countries around the world, teaching people about coral reefs whilst scuba diving. When I was in the Philippines, I started remembering my freediving skills and would freedive on the beautiful reefs there. My next job in Costa Rica was teaching scuba diving and working in coral restoration, and this was when I really fell for freediving. It had been seven years since I'd dived on a line, but I decided to do the next level certification. That course made me realise how freeing it felt to be underwater without a heavy tank, and how empowering it was to do something with my body that I didn't think was possible, this was the moment I would say I got hooked. I next went to visit Dahab, Egypt, which is known as the freediving Mecca. The combination of being immersed in a freediving community, learning from inspiring instructors and diving in the warm blue water made me fall even deeper in love with freediving. It was here that I decided to quit my desk job to train as a freediving instructor in 2023.

What has been your favourite free diving destination so far, and what is on your bucket list?

I went to Mexico this year and I have to say that freediving in the cenotes there absolutely blew my mind! They are fresh water cave systems and some of them have the most incredible light that I have ever seen, freediving there was truly magical. Raja Ampat in Indonesia has been on my bucket list for many years now as it has some of the highest coral reef biodiversity of anywhere in the world!

How does free diving give you a greater sense of purpose / outlook on life?

Freediving reminds me of the wildness of the world, and allows me to connect with nature in a way that I have somehow never quite experienced on land. It reminds me of how beautiful and diverse life on this planet is and it quietens the noise and stress of modern human life for me. It allows me to feel more wild in myself too, I feel less like a tourist visiting a landscape like I sometimes do whilst scuba diving, but somehow more a part of the ecosystem itself. It teaches me presence, and holds a mirror to my thoughts and feelings about myself. I find this is especially true when training to go deep. There is nothing more revealing to yourself than to freedive, if you are having negative thoughts or self doubt, they can be amplified when you freedive to depth, so it can be a real lesson of showing kindness to yourself, trusting yourself but also knowing when it is right not push but to turn around and go back to the surface.

What is your most wild story free diving?

It has to be a moment from the time when I was working for a marine conservation organisation in the Philippines… I was freediving with a friend on the reef in front where we lived, diving down along the most beautiful reef wall that was made up of a kaleidoscope of corals and fish. I dived down the wall, and when I got to around 7 meters or so, I noticed what looked a bit like a starry night sky appearing beneath me, I didn’t realist what it was for a moment and then when it came into focus I realised it was a whale shark, directly underneath me! I remember almost blowing out my air as I was not expecting it at all!! I swam over it for a couple more seconds then had to come to the surface to breathe again. They are the biggest fish in the sea, and totally harmless filter feeders, but absolutely incredible to see under the water, real gentle giants! I couldn’t believe my luck, as if I had dived just a few seconds earlier or later I probably wouldn’t have spotted it because I couldn’t make it out from the surface. I swam in the same direction and dived down once again, and I had the most beautiful moment swimming above it as it cruised along the reef. It is a memory I will cherish for the rest of my life and an ocean moment that I definitely think will be hard to beat.

Can you share about your journey with photography?

My interest in underwater photography pretty much started from my fascination with corals. I worked for a year in Madagascar, teaching people about coral reefs and marine surveying methods. As part of this job I had to learn how to identify corals down to genus level, and it took a lot of studying and identification practice to get to the level that I needed to be at. Taking photos of different corals and identifying them in the photos later on was really helpful in this process, and from there I started taking photos of just about anything that I thought was interesting on a reef, which to be honest is most things! I still have folders full of different types of corals that I can’t bring myself to delete. I really want to keep learning more about photography and would love to take more photos of people underwater as well.