Mandy Sumner with her gold medal for swimming underwater.
Sumner under the ice. Photos courtesy of Mandy Sumner
By Angelina Keizer, UNE Intern
When Mandy Sumner talks about the water, you can tell it’s more than just a hobby to her—it’s where she belongs.
After nearly 20 years away—including 16 in Hawaii, where she still has a house—Sumner has come back to her home on Bauneg Beg Pond in Sanford. She goes back and forth between the two now, which makes sense for someone who has spent her whole life moving with the tide.
Sumner has been swimming for as long as she can remember. She joined the Sanford Titans swim team at age 5 and lifeguarded at Wells, Ogunquit, and Kennebunk beaches. But she never thought free diving would become her career. “I didn’t even know free diving was a thing,” she admits.
That changed when she moved to Hawaii. She discovered she was naturally good at holding her breath and diving deep—really deep. The deepest she has gone is 85 meters, which is almost 280 feet. In 2015, she won the first U.S. national medal for a man or woman in free diving. She spent three years competing around the world, traveling to Dubai, Egypt, Norway, Finland, Iceland and more.
Most people think of free diving as a warm water sport; Sumner disagrees. She started coaching a friend who was attempting world records under frozen lakes in Norway. Eventually, she decided to try it herself. “It was freezing,” she says, laughing. “I was like, you guys are nuts.”
But she went back. And in 2024, she set a world record for ice diving—swimming under a frozen lake, hole to hole, holding her breath the whole time. Nobody has broken it yet, and she is determined to keep it that way.
Norway, she says, reminds her of home. “It’s a lot like Maine. Same kind of houses, same kind of woods. Even the rocks are similar—I got my degree in geology, so I notice that stuff.”
For someone who dives under ice, Sumner has a surprising confession: She used to be afraid of the ocean. “I remember standing on the edge of the water with my scuba tank on, thinking I couldn’t do it,” she says. “I was scared of what was under me.”
But the moment she went under, everything changed. “It was amazing. I was in their environment—with the fish and the turtles and the dolphins. I loved it from the second I went under.”
She has lost friends to free diving accidents, which she says is the hardest part of the sport. That is why she never dives alone and always has safety divers watching her. “Even now, I don’t like swimming by myself,” she emphasizes. “Your thoughts change when you lose people.”
When she’s 85 meters underwater, she thinks about random stuff. “I don’t try to meditate like other divers. I just let my thoughts come and go,” she says.
Instead of meditation, her go-to distraction is a nonsense song she learned as a kid at summer camp. She begins to sing bits and pieces, “Could have been whiskey, might have been gin, could have been a 246 pack…” She laughs. “I don’t even know where that came from. But it works.”
For a young person in Maine who is curious about free diving, Sumner offers simple advice: Take a real class from a reputable instructor. “Don’t just watch YouTube videos,” she warns. “Learn the science. Your body does amazing things when you get in the water—it’s called the mammalian dive reflex. But you need to learn safety first.” She also encourages those to take it slow. “Listen to your body. Don’t go from zero to 100 feet too fast. You can hurt yourself.”
At 48, Sumner is already planning her next chapter. When she turns 50, she will compete in masters divisions. She wants another world record—maybe in depth this time, not distance. And she wants a U.S. national record, which she somehow does not have yet despite her gold medal and world title.
“Ice diving in the U.S. is just getting started,” she says. “They did their first competition in Minnesota last year. I want to be part of that.”
For now, she is working as a GIS analyst for gas and electric utilities and swimming three times a week at the Sanford YMCA—the same pool where she once swam as a kid. The records from the 1980s are still on the wall. Some of them belong to her friends. “It’s kind of weird,” she shares. “But it’s good to be home.”
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