The thin blue line
©Helen Burt
First published in edition 207 of The Northumbrian, Aug/Sept 2025
Zoe Robertson uncovers the hidden world beneath the North Sea through the eyes of Northumbrian freedivers Helen Burt and Pierre Melion
The first time Helen Burt went freediving in the North Sea, she felt she was “discovering a vibrant, secret underwater garden.” The sunlight that day was bright, filtering down through forests of translucent kelp waving gently from the sea floor. Despite the intense cold, Helen was hooked.
I meet Helen, 32, and her partner Pierre Melion, 31, on a blustery afternoon on Alnmouth beach. Stomping along the dunes, we throw a ball for their enthusiastic spaniel Mango and discuss how I’m also partial to a cold-water dip or a surf session when the swell isn’t too big. For this adventurous duo, however, local waters offer a host of hidden treasures beneath the surface. Helen and Pierre are freedivers. In other words, they dive underwater holding their breath rather than using SCUBA gear. It takes patience, practice, and determination to master, but the rewards are great, and the waters off the Northumberland coast are an unexpectedly perfect setting.
The couple moved to Alnwick in 2022, having met while living in Canada. Despite having no family connections here, they felt the pull of Northumberland’s wild and rugged coastline. Pierre’s father is from Saint Jean de Luz in the South of France, and on their family trips there as a child he taught Pierre to freedive. Pierre continued the hobby, and many years later, while travelling in Thailand, he convinced Helen to enroll on a course. A videographer by trade, her interest was piqued by the opportunities for underwater photography, and despite initially finding some elements challenging, she now describes freediving as a meditative experience.
“At first I found it quite overwhelming, but you learn to slow down your breathing and enter a state of relaxation,” she says. They both agree that under the water, it feels like time slows down, the senses are heightened, and the problems of everyday life seem to feel less bothersome.
Relaxing your body is a lot trickier in the freezing waters of the North Sea than in Thailand, but Helen says having the camera helps her to focus. Getting over an equalisation hurdle resulted in one of her best freediving days last year. Equalisation is the process of balancing the pressure in your ears, sinuses, and mask with the surrounding water pressure as you descend. “I managed to dive to seven or eight metres, and then I just kept diving. I did several dives that day and it was so satisfying, being among all the kelp and down to the sea floor.”
Helen’s favourite freediving location is around Dunstanburgh, with its imposing silhouette of the castle on the basalt clifftops of the Whin Sill. Entering the water at Embleton beach, it’s a straightforward swim to a sheltered cove where the water isn’t too choppy. Around this area, Pierre had one of his most unusual freediving encounters when he came across a bloom of lion’s mane jellyfish. One of the world’s largest species of jellyfish, they can reach more than 2 metres in diameter. If you’ve ever spotted one of these beauties washed up on the beach, you’ll know they can be huge, like a large dustbin lid, and Pierre says they were spectacular to swim among. Among his rarer sightings in the region, he has also spotted a lumpsucker – a fish that looks like a stone and holds on to rocks with its sucker-shaped pelvic fins. North Sea lumpsuckers primarily inhabit deeper waters of 50-300 metres, but migrate to shallower coastal areas during their breeding season.
Another species of jellyfish the couple frequently spot is the rainbow-coloured comb jelly, affectionately nicknamed the ‘sea walnut’ due to its blob-like shape. Instead of tentacles, comb jellies have rows of tiny hairs that look like the teeth of a comb. These refract light, creating the effect of iridescent rainbows travelling down their bodies as they pulse along under the water. They are in fact an invasive species that came to the North Sea in the ballast water of commercial ships from the Black Sea around 20 years ago.
Hearing and seeing seabirds on the surface of the water makes for a unique freediving experience in Northumberland. They describe how the puffins around the Farne Islands never seem particularly bothered by their presence. “You can swim right underneath them and they don’t seem to notice!” Pierre says. The cries of gulls and guillemots above the water are heard in 360-degree stereo sound through the water when you are diving and everything else is muted.
One of Pierre’s favourite freediving destinations is St. Abbs, in the Scottish Borders. It is rich in marine life, and you can dive deep not too far from the shore. “Last time I was there I had a seal following me, it would pop its head up, then when I went nearer it would swim away. They’re a bit shy but they want to know about you, they follow you, then when you turn around, they stop and look away.”
Like the seabirds and seals, Helen and Pierre know the North Sea is great for fishing, and they are passionate about the variety of fish. A Frenchman, Pierre knows the cold waters here make for perfect conditions for delicious seafood. “When you go to a supermarket in France they’ll market the seafood as being from the UK, because people know it’s a cold water place and it tastes better,” he says. He realised the potential for catching his own food when he and Helen moved to Northumberland and he started freediving. “We noticed that the coastline here is really good for spearfishing, but no-one is really using it for that,” he says. “The North Sea water is notoriously cold to dive in, and historically there isn’t the community or culture built around it.”
In 2024, they discovered a WhatsApp group of people in the North East who spearfish. Nicknamed ‘Spearos’, they are a small but dedicated community, passionate about sustainability and finding their own food while respecting and enjoying the natural environment. Spearfishing involves hunting fish using a spear or a speargun, rather than a line or net. It takes stealth and precision to master. The group often meet at Seaton Sluice or go up to Scotland for the day to fish together. Visibility is best between April and October, when the water is typically less churned up.
Our local waters are an excellent source of cod, pollock, coal fish and mackerel. Surprisingly, considering its high quality, 70% of seafood caught in Britain is not consumed here, and that is partly due to a national reluctance to consume some of the lesser-known species on offer. Growing up, Helen’s grandmother told her stories of working as a herring girl in Suffolk just after World War II. “Our grandparents’ generation were much more connected to their food, yet many of us have now lost that,” she says, adding that one of her and Pierre’s favourite ways to spend an afternoon is with a freedive, perhaps catching a lobster using a hook or spearing a pollock, then barbecuing it over an open fire.
Helen and Pierre are passionate about encouraging people to be curious about where their food comes from, and re-connecting to the sea and the land. They have created a short film called Trigger Fish, which screened at Sheffield Adventure Film Festival earlier this year, to introduce people to their unusual hobby. They have also started the Tide to Table initiative, with a website aiming to cultivate awareness and introduce people to food in its natural landscape. The couple believe we can all enjoy more of the fish our region has to offer by visiting our local fishmonger and trying something new. Pierre recommends mussels as an entry-level seafood. “They’re quite hard to cook incorrectly, they’re usually inexpensive, and although they are farmed, it’s one of the farming practices that is known to be more sustainable.” Mussels are grown on ropes and are known as filter-feeders, meaning they get their food from the water around them rather than needing external food sources as farmed salmon do, for example. Local mackerel is also plentiful in summer, especially June and July.
While we may not all be in the market for a wetsuit and a speargun, the couple’s enthusiasm for their coastal lifestyle is infectious. Helen says: “I love the health and wellness benefits of freediving and being able to catch our own food. I feel very lucky to live in Northumberland, and the hobby has made me realise even more what a cool place the UK is.” I have to say, I agree, and I’m heading straight to North Shields Fish Quay to procure mussels for tea.
Trigger Fish is available to watch free at: www.tidetotable.co.uk