This Record Is Breathtaking

Champion free diver Tanya Streeter broke a world record Monday by descending on a single breath to 400 feet off the Turks and Caicos islands.

Using a weighted sled, she descended along a line dangled from a boat and swam to the surface using fins. She surfaced after 3 minutes 58 seconds, giving two thumbs up before swimming back to the boat.

“It feels really good!” said Streeter, a 30-year-old native of the Cayman Islands who lives in Austin, Texas.

The previous women’s world record as recognized by the International Assn. for the Development of Apnea, one of the sport’s governing bodies, was 312 feet, set by Canadian Mandy-Rae Cruickshank. Streeter is one of the most recognized female free divers in the world. Monday’s dive marks the eighth time she has broken a world record.

Last year, she set another world record -- since broken -- with a 525-foot plunge in the “no-limits” category. In that discipline, she rode down on the sled and resurfaced using a harness with an inflatable bag that rocketed her back to the surface.

Free diving is an extreme sport that sends men and women to extraordinary depths on lung power. A popular world-record holder, Audrey Mestre, died in October after plunging into deep waters near the Dominican Republic trying to break the world record of 531.5 feet set by her husband.