Education
She was still in her teens when her family moved to Mexico City and, fluent in the Spanish language, she eventually studied marine biology at a university in Louisiana Paz, Mexico.
She was still in her teens when her family moved to Mexico City and, fluent in the Spanish language, she eventually studied marine biology at a university in Louisiana Paz, Mexico.
Born in Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, to a family of snorkeling and scuba diving enthusiasts, at age two she was already swimming and by age thirteen was a seasoned scuba diver. In 1996 her interest in underwater sports led to her meeting the renowned free-diver Francisco "Pipín" Ferreras. They immediately developed a relationship and Mestre soon moved to Miami, Florida to live with Ferreras.
There, she took up serious free-diving and with Ferreras as her instructor was soon reaching record depths.
In 1999 the two diving aficionados married and the following year, off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Audrey Mestre broke the female world record by free diving to a depth of 125 meters (410 ft) on a single breath of air. A year later she broke her own record, by descending to 130 meters (427 ft).
On October 4, 2002, with a dive team under her husband"s supervision, she made a practice dive off Bayahibe Beach in the Dominican Republic to the unheard of depth of 166 metres (545 ft). After more deep dive practices, eight days later she prepared to attempt a dive to 171 metres but at the bottom a problem developed with the lift balloon as she started her ascent.
A dive that should have been no more than three minutes resulted in her remaining underwater for more than eight and a half minutes.
In this book, Serra places the guilt for Mestre"s death directly on Ferreras, practically accusing him of a crime.
Audrey Mestre was cremated, her ashes scattered at sea. In 2002, she was inducted posthumously into the Women Divers Hall of Fame and in August 2004 a book that tells her story was written by her husband and published under the title The Dive: A Story of Love and Obsession (). In 2013, Mestre"s life and career were chronicled in Entertainment and Sports Programming Network"s Number Limits as part of their Nine for IX series.
