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One way to explore the deep dark waters is probably one of the most extreme types of diving known as cave diving. It’s the type of underwater diving in water-filled caves that can be done as an extreme sport or a way of exploring flooded caves for scientific investigation. To find out more about it, we spoke with Redditor and cave diving explorer Helodriver87, who shared some incredible insights into what it's like.
“Cave diving is a mental game. You really have to have your emotions under control and allow the rational part of your brain to be in control. The truth is you have a decent amount of time to solve most problems (less true as the depth increases, however) and panic will only make it worse.”
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Moreover, it takes a lot of training and the right kind of equipment to do it in a way that minimizes risk, the explorer said. “But at the end of the day, you're responsible for making the decision as to what's an acceptable level of risk and how much uncertainty to plan for. A well-trained team that sticks to their training has a really good shot at getting out of most bad situations, but only if they keep their cool and work through the problem rationally, which can be hard to do when you allow yourself to focus too much on how hostile the environment is and how much trust you're placing in your gear and your buddy.”
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Helodriver87 explained that you have to focus on executing the plan and monitoring your resources/location in the cave all the time. “Definitely take the time to enjoy the sights, but the focus is always on keeping the guideline in sight, monitoring gas consumption and pace, staying within allowable deco obligations, and ensuring that navigational decisions are marked.”
“Even in emergency situations, you have to stay focused on the basics, because if those drop off, a bad situation can get a lot worse. The only thing worse than some kind of unresolvable equipment failure is that same failure, but now you have no idea where the exit is because you got too focused on the emergency and lost sight of the guideline,” he concluded.
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To find out more about the incredible world of deep dark waters, Bored Panda also reached out to Reddit user Sbenzenzanwan, a distance-working translator in his 50s who travels all over (54 countries so far, one per year) with his wife. Many of Sbenzenzanwan’s stories have to do with skin and deep diving, so he shared his firsthand experience of what is it like with us.
Sbenzenzanwan told us that his diving adventures started when he got a temporary diving permit at 15 to go diving with his stepmother in Cozumel, Mexico. “She’s a marine biologist and ecologist. I never completed the test to get the LIFETIME diving certificate. Huge mistake,” he said. However, the Redditor has done dozens of “introductory” diving courses all over the world (Thailand, Cape Verde, Monterrey California, Ecuador, Mexico, Malaysia), but said that he just mostly just free dived for lack of equipment.
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I was 14 at the time and my parents were life long divers, we dived the Coolidge twice that day already and our guide offered a night dive to us.
We were supposed to only dive down to a depth of 25 meters and check out these flashlight fish that would school together in a cargo hold, they had these really bright green eyes that looked amazing and lit up underwater. I still don’t really know what happened that night but it felt like we were staring at these fish for forever. Suddenly I didn’t feel right, my breathing felt funny, I tried to grab my gauge to check how much air I had left, it took every bit of muscle I had to reach for my gauge connected to my waist, I slowly grabbed it and read that I had about half a tank left, relived for a split second but still concerned something was wrong I reached for my mum to signal her something wasn’t right, I grabbed her arm but couldn’t hold on, I just started sinking to the bottom. My mum quickly grabbed my arm as I fell but I had no leg movement, so I started dragging her to the bottom with me, my dad now realises somethings wrong and grabs my mum trying to pull us all up. The dive guide now is freaking out and trying to make sure everyone is alright, they all start swimming me back up and in to shore. Once we got up closer, I started to feel normal again but abit dazed and confused. Turns out I had nitrogen narcosis, and had dropped to 40 meters when I couldn’t swim anymore. For those of you who don’t know what nitrogen narcosis is, it’s when you have to much nitrogen in your body and it gives you a intoxicated effect.
Nothing to hectic but still a vivid memory of thinking I was gonna sink to the bottom of the ocean not being able to do anything about it.
When asked what he thinks of while diving down, Sbenzenzanwan said that he tries to maintain a calm, relaxed state of mind. “You can’t rush. If you rush, you’ll need to come back up for air soon and you won’t really get to see much. The water only allows you to move at a certain speed, so you need to adapt to that and ‘go with the flow.’”
There are many skills a diver needs. The Redditor told us that you not only need to be able to hold your breath for a minute or so, you also need some basic knowledge of diving, “things like knowing to breathe out when you ascend so you don’t get the bends, how to plug your nose and equalize ear pressure as you go down, how to remove and put your mask back on underwater, etc.”
“I doubt I’ve ever been down for more than 90 seconds. You need to remember that it’s a lethal environment,” he said and added that “If you’re not back on the surface in a relatively short time, you will die.”
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The Redditor argues that diving is about keeping your wits about you, remaining calm, not going inside anything and not taking big risks.
On one such adventure, Sbenzenzanwan recounted diving in Las Grietas, a series of deep cracks on the Island of Santa Cruz in the Galapagos where sea water seeps in and mixes with rainwater, creating a unique micro-ecosystem with all kinds of fish (parrot fish), turtles, and other sea creatures. “I free dove down to the bottom, which was really quite deep (10 meters?), near the outer limits of how deep I can go, and saw the floor was covered with a strange bubbling fuzz,” he recounted.
The Redditor continued: “Some kind of weird organic processes going on down there. Really spectacular place. You need to go at the right time to see well underwater because of the position of the sun in the sky and the walls of the grietas.
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”For those who’re wondering what deep waters are like, Sbenzenzanwan says it’s a completely different world. “The giant clams near Phi Phi Island in the Andaman Sea (Thailand) stand out as one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen. I’m glad they are not being eaten, because it looks like something I never would want to try,” he said.
When it comes to scary creatures you may meet while diving, the Redditor said that jellyfish in some parts of the world are quite scary since they are extremely venomous. “Some can kill you. Others just ruin your day or week. Just the sight of one makes me want to get back in the boat or on dry land.” One of the scariest encounters, however, the adventurer had was the massive manta ray he met while diving in Academy Bay.
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But that’s not all. “Also free diving in Oregon, in a natural river hole called Wildwood Falls. Me and some friends were trying to reach the bottom. No one was able to do it until someone had the idea to pick up a very large rock and jump in. That was very deep, maybe 15 meters,” Sbenzenzanwan recounted.
“The scary part was watching the world, the sky, disappear as it was swallowed up by the darkness of the surrounding water,” the Redditor said and added that he doesn’t recommend doing this. “There are overhanging rocks you can get trapped under where there’s no light,” he explained.