Like wow wtf, these incidents are really just endless, huh? I must've gone through hundreds of these now. It seems like it doesn't matter whether someone is an experienced scuba diver or not, these caves have a tendency to just fuck up your shit.
People who you could call not just world class divers, but world class cave divers apparently routinely enter these things en masse and are never seen alive again. Rescues are extremely rare because they tend to run out of air before anyone even realizes something went wrong. Then the only hope of retrieving the body is to fly in another world class cave diver, very likely a friend of the now rotting corpse floating in the cave. This isn't a very commonly practiced hobby as you can imagine.
Good chance this guy fucking dies in the cave too. At that point the property owner tends to just block off the entrance and let the two spend eternity together. It's very touching.
Most common scenario seems to be losing their guide rope back to the cave exit, accidentally stirring up previously pristine and undisturbed silt, reducing the visibility to literally 0, and then totally losing track of the claustrophobic passage that they originally shimmied through to get into that chamber. This is very obviously the perfect time to panic, hyperventilate away most of your air supply, and swim around wildly kicking up even more silt while trying to find the way out. Kind of like being stuck under a sheet of ice, but far worse because you probably still have something like 30 minutes left to think about the fact that no one can possibly rescue you in time.
I can't imagine being in this situation, what a shit way to go. I'd rather go fucking wing suiting than get anywhere near an underwater cave.
The math is just so against you I can't imagine risking it, you have to do it correctly every time, and if you do it incorrectly you now have to be perfect in a scenario that you make every attempt to avoid to start with, with an intensely fallible human body full of counterproductive instincts that take over when you panic.
There was a case in I think Croatia where they thought there had been a group conspiracy to commit a murder in a cave diving group cause someone went missing out of a group and was then found with a knife in his chest, then it turned out after investigating all possible scenarios that he most likely just did it to himself after he realized he fucked up and was going to suffocate or drown for certain.
I don't have claustrophobia but I know for a fact I would acquire it if I so much as snagged some clothes in a crawl-height cave
Cave diving has always struck me as a weird hobby because not only is it insanely high risk, it seems like insanely low reward, too. Great, you saw some rocks at the bottom of a pitch-black hole - doesn't seem to have the same thrill factor as skydiving and isn't as sexy as being a fighter jet test pilot. What evolutionary compulsion got twisted around enough to make you want to do this?
the pitch-black underwater cave combines a nostalgic yearning for the mineshafts of their youth and the comfort of the womb
Alright there’s a few of these weirdos swimming around in there but it’s not exactly teeming with life
Yeah I’m fucking around I don’t think anyone in here is seriously advocating for cementing the little guys
I'm seriously advocating for cementing these little aphotic and despotic fish freaks.
You only have +5 so I feel compelled to tell you this is one of the funniest comments I’ve read on here and I’ve been around since inception
I’ve only been diving a couple times in my life and I think I’d snap if I was in a cave. I kept checking to make sure I knew where the surface was every now and then. I’d have to know I could swim up and make it to shore within a few hours or so worst case scenario to be ok with it. I’ve played enough subnautica smh
friend's bf has been posting diving photos on facebook the past few years and he's definitely headed in this direction. Last year he took a cave diving safety course, which of all safety courses in the world ironically increases your risk of death the most (followed by avalanche safety courses). Then just this month he posted some photos of him trying a rebreather. It's so over, there's basically a countdown over his head at this point.
Underrated fact about diving (not even very) deep is nitrogen narcosis, you basically get drunk and your decision-making ability is extremely inhibited. Throw that in with a fuck ton of objective danger!
those probably fake signs on underwater caves like 'do it it'll be funny' are a fun idea though, critical support to mocking people making the most preventable mistake in the universe
Pretty similar to high-altitude mountaineering in that you have to spend tens of thousands of dollars and years of training & preparation to die in that way.
I am large framed, have claustrophobia, don't like going very far underground, and despite being a very strong swimmer, I have profound submechanophobia and don't like "exploring" under water beyond a snorkel float observing something from a great distance.
Ive gone down some rabbit holes on this stuff too and I think underwater cave divers have some really intense Call of The Void type shit going on in their brains that I cannot engage.
There are a very large number of things I'd rather not do such as free climbing the Burj Khalifa or boxing a grizzly bear and I'd still rather do those than cave diving.
You think those are a trip look into free diving too. Once you get to 30m you become negatively buoyant and the ocean sucks you under 😵💫
absolute nightmare scenario. you'd think the stories would get around that community enough to stop people from these types of dives
They literally have underwater signs with the image of a cartoon Grim Reaper telling you to fuck off from these things.
tangentially related but those bulky deep sea diving hardsuits the navy has are super cool and i would jump at the chance to get in one and face poseidon's darkest realms if anyone but imperialist militaries and oil companies had them.
