Ningaloo Reef freediving: Heart of the Nation

Kara Peebles is harnessesing the therapeutic power of freediving while recovering from a serious injury. “The ocean is my medicine,” she says.

Kara Peebles diving at Ningaloo. Photo: Brooke Pyke

Immersing oneself in the ocean has a strange therapeutic power, doesn’t it? It’s a balm for life’s worries, a respite from stress, a recharge for the soul. For Kara Peebles, it’s all that and more. Since her life was upended by an accident 18 months ago – she was a passenger in a boat that hit a rock wall at speed, and ­suffered multiple injuries – being in the ocean has been key to her physical and mental rehabilitation. “It’s my therapy, my medicine,” she says.

The 28-year-old was born in Mandurah, south of Perth, but spent much of her early life in Arnhem Land after her dad got a job at the ­bauxite refinery in Nhulunbuy. It was the best childhood, she says: a life of fishing and exploring, making cubby houses in the mangroves and camping on remote islands. It instilled in her a lifelong love of the outdoors.

Picture: Brooke Pyke

For the past four years Peebles has been ­living in Exmouth, which offers an agreeable small-town vibe and easy access to great diving on Ningaloo Reef. After working a couple of seasons on the boats that take tourists swimming with whale sharks, she began a nursing degree by correspondence. But then the accident forced her to quit her studies, and she’s been working ever since as a receptionist at a medical centre. She’s an optimistic, glass-half-full sort though. “I’m getting better,” she says. “Despite some chronic pain, I’m feeling like myself again.”

Freediving on Ningaloo with photographer Brooke Pyke, her great friend, is always a joy. “You never know what you’re going to see,” she says. It could be tiger sharks, or manta rays, or whale sharks; they once swam with a sunfish, one of the ocean’s freakiest looking creatures (google it: you’ll be amazed). Just being out there is enough: here, Pyke has captured ­Peebles ­finning along the seabed in 10m of water, beautifully framed by ripples in the sand.

Peebles is taking each day of her recovery as it comes, with regular doses of ocean medicine. “It feels so peaceful when I’m freediving,” she says. “I’m not thinking about anything except what’s right in front of me. It’s like time just stops.”