Deep-water divers have always been the daredevils of diving, pushing far into the dark labyrinth of water-filled holes and extreme ocean depths. If you are one of them then read on for the perfect destination for extreme cave diving thrills!
The Bushman’s Hole in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, provides just this kind of opportunity. It is the third-deepest submerged freshwater cave (or sinkhole) in the world, approximately 270 meters deep. A trip into this cave is for the professionals since it holds major challenges of deep diving decompression.
The narrow entrance is claustrophobic, but once you reach the vast main chamber, it’s surreal beauty is like a calling death trap, waiting to be explored .
Keep going, through a narrow shaft running for another 150 feet, and finally it all opens into a vast freshwater cavern tall enough to hold the Eiffel Tower, and deep enough early 1,000 feet to mesmerize the most experienced, technical cave divers in the world. Its like spacewalking that propels you to the unexplored.
Challenges of deep cave diving:
• Danger of getting trapped or lost
• Breathing deep-dive gas mixes - usually a combination of helium, nitrogen and oxygen known as trimix - at extreme underwater pressure can kill you in any number of ways.
• At depth, oxygen can become toxic, and nitrogen acts like a narcotic - the deeper you go, the stupider you get. It can be compared to drinking on an empty stomach.
• If you don’t breathe slowly and deeply, carbon dioxide can build up in your lungs and you’ll black out.
• Decompression can cause all the nitrogen and helium that has been forced into your tissues under pressure to fizz into tiny bubbles, causing ‘the bends’, which can result in severe pain, paralysis and death.
That is why extreme divers spend hours on ascent, sitting at targeted depths for carefully calculated periods of decompression to allow the gases to flush safely from their bodies.
Dave Shaw
The world over, just about 10 people have completed successful dives below 820 feet and out of them at least three ran into serious trouble in the process and two have since died.
Dave Shaw and Shirley were attempting the deepest underwater body recovery in history in which Shaw lost his life.He died doing what he loved and bringing the body of Deon Dryer for his parents , ten years after his death.
While its beauty calls don’t let it undermine the clear and present danger of diving here. After all local legend states that a black serpent lives in its dreary depths. And no doubt the serpant in this case are the toxic poisonous gases.
Source: ABC
