«I love Montecristo intensely, this truly wild island in the Mediterranean, this natural reserve protected from the dirty hands of the Technological Man. It represents, for me, a symbol of purity and virginity, a welcoming oasis in the middle of that desert which is the way of life of our type of civilization ». It is November 22, 1976 when Jacques Mayol, a legendary freediver pluri-primatist, wrote these words. He is the Dolphin Man, a definition that is sewn onto his skin, and which will give the title to his book published in 1979 (Homo Delphinus) by Giunti Editore, then republished in 2002 by the same publishing house. Those "dirty hands of the Technological Man" today, after almost half a century, weigh like a boulder on the consciences of the Planet.

Mayol, in some way forerunner and precursor of that environmentalist sensitivity that will characterize public opinion to this day, tells of Montecristo while on the beach of Pareti in Capoliveri, where he has lived for years, on the Island of Elba. He reveals that the land that emerged in the blue where he trains is his good luck charm, "a sign of good luck" in the four years of deep diving experiments. Today, 20 years after his death, the precious ethical, philosophical and human teaching of the great philosopher of the depths is increasingly topical.

THE EXPLORER. The eternal rival of Enzo Maiorca and teacher of Umberto Pellizzari, was a true intellectual of the submerged Blue, a philosopher of the abyss like no other, explorer of the human being, of his aquatic abilities and of his origins. A lifelong research that led him to discover the ancient bond of man with the other animals of the water planet, in particular the dolphins «those mischievous children of the sea, our brothers», writes Mayol. Together with Mallorca, it helped to dispel how erroneously, up to the mid-1960s, was held regarding the human limits of descent. That is, beyond a certain depth (over 40 meters), our chest would be crushed by hydrostatic pressure. Mayol, observing marine mammals, realizes that this is not the case and so thanks also to his sporting performances, he pushes medical research to discover the so-called bloodshift, the blood slip, that physiological reaction that unites man with aquatic mammals: in practice the '' increase in the volume of blood (incompressible like all liquids) in the alveolar capillaries, avoids the crushing of the chest. It will be the dolphins who will teach him the secrets of freediving, the voluntary (or involuntary) interruption of breathing. Among all his beloved teacher-sister. It was called Clown. "The dolphin, or should I say Clown, the dolphin, because it was, as you will see, a female in the broadest sense of the word," he says in the book.

22 DECEMBER 2001. In 1988 the Cannes Film Festival opens with the screening of Luc Besson's film, Le Grand Bleu. There is a dramatic and disturbing passage in the finale of the film that tells the friendship but also the rivalry between the two most famous divers in the world, Mayol and Mallorca. The French freediver (played by the actor Jean-Marc Barr) during a night dive decides to follow the irresistible call of the dolphins and together with them reaches the dark depths of the water. There, where the earthly light cannot reach, but where there is another equally luminous life. It is as if Mayol, in Besson's filmic fiction, abandoned earthly existence to return to the origins of life, to his "brothers of the sea". The disturbing continuity with the real life of the freediver born in Shanghai in 1927, ("April 1st, which earned me the well-deserved nickname of" fish ") and who about twenty years ago , on December 22, 2001, he was "killed" by a severe and long depressive crisis. To find his lifeless body in the house in Capoliveri, a friend of his, alarmed because she could not get in touch with him, as reported by the newspapers of those years.

LIVING WITH THE DOLPHINS. There is an episode in his life that marks a profound turning point: the magical encounter with dolphins, those in the open sea and those in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium. In particular the meeting with Clown. From the great bond he manages to establish with these wonderful animals, Mayol learns all the secrets of underwater life and freediving. And on this bond he writes poignant pages, of limitless sweetness and profound respect for these beings. Especially his friend with whom he spends whole days. “She taught me, in this way, to hold my breath longer and longer, with each dive, without doing the preventive hyperventilation; to let me go down; to let myself be lulled by the movement of the water, to melt in it, to integrate completely, softly, without effort with the maximum economy of movements and effectiveness. She taught me to bend under the waves and to be constantly alert. He taught me to behave underwater, in apnea, like a cat behaves on land. More than anything else - he specifies - she taught me to smile inwardly ». Mayol then reveals: "It seems little, and yet it is a very great thing, because thanks to these direct teachings I was able to undertake later on the path that led to the deep dive of less than a hundred meters". When Clown dies in May 1972 it will be a huge blow for Mayol. He had gone to visit her before a trip to the East. “I thought maybe I wouldn't be able to see her again for several months. I was afraid she would get too old. It was almost a premonition ». Mayol crosses the entrance to the Seaquarium and immediately realizes that something inevitable has happened. Clown is gone. “She had been dead for a week from a respiratory infection. Now, the star of the show was a daughter she had had in the meantime. Thus the spirit of my partner was perpetuated. Such is the law of the cycle of Life and Death ». But for Mayol his companion of many discoveries and explorations continues to exist. Clown lives with him. “I see her when I pass by the Seaquarium to visit her daughter who looks like her like a drop of water and seems to have the same character; and I find it every time my gaze meets that of another dolphin. I have the distinct feeling that there is something behind that look that I cannot understand. I feel that there is an affinity between that dolphin and me, between all dolphins and all men ». That's all it is.

Three days before that sad Christmas in 2001, Jacques Mayol decides that perhaps the time has come for him to join his special friend too. That Dolphin Man, teacher of Yoga discipline, who at 56 had torn the -105 meter tag from the abyss, returned to the sea. His ashes, as he had asked, were scattered by his friends off the coast of Tuscany in the infinite blue. Where it had come from.

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