Cristy Gearon

Cristy Gearon is an AIDA Instructor, AIDA Judge and 1 of 5 members who were assigned by the AIDA Education Committee to act on the AIDA Youth Commission. She is our commercial skipper (Coxwains Grade 1– Near Coastal) and boat mechanic for our own purpose-built freediving vessel and co owner of Freediving Gold Coast. Cristy’s previous commercial experience in boating has been on fishing charters and sailing vessels. She also was awarded the MED 3 award (Marine Engine Driver’s qualification from TAFE proving that she’s not only not afraid to get her hands dirty – she actually likes it. Cristy was the sole operator of an eco-tour she called ‘Water’Bout’ which celebrated the beauty, diversity and ecological significance of South Stradbroke Island’s ‘Jumpinpin’ in the Southern Moreton Bay Marine Park. She holds a Bachelor of Education and has 15 years’ teaching experience working in the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary settings including mainstream, behaviour units and the disability sector. When she’s not teaching freediving with Freediving Gold Coast she’s teaching in a local Gold Coast High School. She’s looking forward to the day that AIDA introduces the much anticipated freediving courses for children and their families so that families can grow as freedivers together. Co author of the Guidelines for the AIDA Youth Programs, soon to be released, Cristy is most proud of AIDA’s strong commitment to water awareness and safety for children and its willingness to go against the ‘commercial grain’ in the interests of the child. The Youth courses are like no other ‘beyond snorkeling courses’. Cristy is 1 of only 4 female AIDA Instructors in Australia.

“Freediving has a simplicity about it and it gives you an honest awareness of who you are and where you’re at. Few experiences can be that raw but still enjoyable.” Cristy

Cristy @ 39 weeks pregnant – just enjoying the relaxation phase – without the breath holding. “It’s everyone’s genetic right to freedive and breath hold. We simply wouldn’t have survived being born if we didn’t have the dive responses. Breath holding is then not for a select few. It’s for everyone who wants to tap back into something they’ve simply left behind.’