Ashley Futral
Personal Statistics:
Birthdate: November 16, 1982
Resides: Wilmington, NC USA
Employment: Land Management Group, Inc. - Environmental Scientist
Click here to view upcoming courses offered by Ashley. You will be redirected to Evolve Freediving’s website.
Having grown up in a small town in North Carolina about an hour from the beach and havingbeen born to a mother who is deathly afraid of sharks Ashleyʼs prospects at becoming the next Jacqueline Custeau seemed slim. She was taught to swim at a very early age, as both her parents are excellent swimmers, and began “exploring her potential” by swimming underwater as far as she could without coming up for air. The freediving seed had been planted unknowingly only to surface years later.
It wasnʼt until her senior year in college that she decided to take matters into her own hands and enroll in a SCUBA diving course. As Ultimate Frisbee was the only thing that really mattered in life, at that time, she declined the check out dive trip to Ginnie Springs in Florida. One year later she met her husband, Ren Chapman, and found out that his father was the SCUBA instructor from her college class. Now that Ashley had a vested interest in the family she found herself back in the pool ready to finish her certification.
One ocean dive later Ren mentioned an impossible new sport called freediving. He had seen a couple of friends swimming to unachievable depths and Ashley thought she should try it. She admitted that it was alluring but doubted her own physical abilities. A couple of months later she found herself in the Cayman Islands with Performance FreedivingInternational (PFI). She was immediately star struck by the opportunity to learn from the freedive communityʼs foremost members. Intimidated as she possible could be she decided to let go ofher insecurities and do whatever she could do, which isnʼt very hard when you have absolutely no expectations. Four days and one static apnea blackout later Ashley found herself out on the PFI rig moving from the “short” dive line to the “long” one in order to swim to her maximum depth yet. She surfaced from the dive a freediver.
Since those first fortuitous dives, Ashley has gone on to accomplish much in the freediving world. She was a member of the 2008 US Womenʼs Freediving Team, where they achieved the silver medal in Egypt. After that she competed in the 2009 Deja Blue freediving competition on Grand Cayman Island, again securing a silver medal. In the Spring of 2011 at Deja Blue II she broke the US Womenʼs Constant Weight No Fins record three times ending up with a new Pan-American record of 58 meters or 190 feet…without fins! She has also gone on to further her education withPFI by becoming a Safety Diver, Assistant Instructor and now Basic Instructor. With her new sense of accomplishment and confidence Ashleyʼs goals have been redirected. She is now working on running her own Basic Freediving courses through her company, EvolveFreediving, in Wilmington, NC with her husband, Ren and teaching Intermediate Courses with the PFI team. She is currently working as an environmental consultant when not in the water, and isplanning to sail with Ren to the Caribbean after hurricane season (2011) where they will travel theworld on their 35ʼ Pearson.
Click here to view upcoming courses offered by Ashley. You will be redirected to Evolve Freediving’s website.
Ashley’s next courses in Wilmington are:
Oct. 8-9
