From the late 1980s and onward he made a name of himself in the so-called "No-Limits"' discipline of freediving where he established his first known world record of 112 meters (367 ft) depth in November 1989.
The rivalry of Ferreras and Pelizzari became the focus of the 2001 IMAX production Ocean Men: Extreme Dive, directed by renowned under water photographer Bob Talbot.
In 1999 they married, and quickly the two became a regular record-breaking couple in the sport of freediving, dividing men and women's records between them.
[1] On October 12, 2002, Mestre died during an early attempt to break the 160 meters (520 ft) no-limits world record that Tanya Streeter had established a few weeks before on August 17, 2002 (it was at the time both men and women's official AIDA record), in a setup that did not match common freediving safety standards.
Much of the diving community critique went to Ferreras who had hurried an underfunded organisation for this new record attempt that was previously planned at a later date, notably with too few safety divers, lacking proper rescue equipment, with no doctors at sea and shore.
She had a pulse at the surface, but there were no medical doctors available to treat her and minutes were wasted with Ferreras attempting to resuscitate her in the water.
[3] A year after her death, Ferreras completed a no-limits dive to match Mestre's depth of 171 meters (561 ft).
[1] On June 21, 2012, in Miami, Florida, Pipin married Juscelina Cacau Melo, a Canadian former South Beach model, also known in the diving world as Nina Ferreras.
In 2004, James Cameron acquired the movie rights and was to co-produce and possibly direct the film, with the script written by Dana Stevens.
He refused to go any deeper at the time, as he only wanted to match his late wife's (Audrey Mestre) last and deepest dive, in honor of her memory.