Book Now
Hanli Prinsloo
Hanli is an 8 times South African Freediving Record Holder, filmmaker and avid Ocean Adventurer. She has a background in acting, documentary filmmaking as well as over ten years of competitive freediving experience. Her documentary work has taken her into the front-lines of social political conflict all over Africa, from Burundi to Uganda, South Africa and Zimbabwe to name a few. Hanli is a strong believer in the greatness of the human spirit under the toughest of circumstances, having seen beauty and hope flourish where least expected. Leaving the camera behind her Hanli has focused all her energy on the Ocean, surfing, sailing, long distance swimming, conservation and freediving. Through her sport Hanli has trained an array of top athletes; from rugby players, to swimmers and surfers, working with mental toughness, mind over body control and mindfulness. Her work with the world's best Big Wave Surfers has won her international recognition and acclaim. She has been nominated for the Cosmo Awesome Women of the Year Awards, Outthere Adventurer of the Year, Gsport's Women in Sport as well as a 'strider' in the Johnny Walker Celebrating Strides Awards.
Hanli speaks with animation and passion about freedom, fear, risk and conscious living. Her visual material from the underwater realm combined with her vibrant storytelling captures the imagination and inspires audiences of all ages and walks of life.
NEWS: Hanli Prinsloo returns to the Deep Blue
After over two years of not competing, Cape Town based Freediver and Ocean Conservationist Hanli Prinsloo has returned to the small town of Dahab in Egypt. Freediving is the sport of diving as deep, as far or as long as possible on one single breath of air.
After only 3 days of training she competed in the International Triple Depth Competition this week where she on the first day broke the South African Free Immersion record with a dive to 52m and placed 3rd overall.
Hanli has been Freediving for over ten years and broken in total 9 South African records in various Freediving disciplines. The past years she has focused her attention away from the competitive side of the sport to develop her ocean passion into a working lifestyle: training the SA Big Wave Surfers to hold their breaths, teaching Freediving and ocean mindedness to beginners, founding the I Am Water Ocean Conservation Trust, doing Motivation Speaking and diving regularly with Marine Mega Fauna.
Hanli has now decided to return to Egypt for 5 weeks of training to better the standing SA records and attempt her deepest dives ever.
The deep diving Hanli will be focusing on during this time is the self-propelled disciplines: Constant Weight with Fins, where the diver swims up and down assisted by a monofin, Constant Weight no Fins, where the diver swims down and back up the rope using breastroke, and Free Immersion where the diver pulls herself down a rope and back up again.
The town of Dahab on the east coast of the Sinai peninsula is a famous location for Freedivers because of the Blue Hole, a natural phenomenon where corals have formed a hole approximately 80 meters in diameter and 90 meters deep. The crystal clear, calm waters of the Blue Hole offers the perfect freediving training location. At the end of her training period Hanli will do further record attempts these to be announced later.
Regular updates on her training is available on Hanli's website: www.hanliprinsloo.com for hi-res images email hanli@iamwater.co.za
