SCUBA DIVING DEPTH WORLD RECORD

SCUBA DIVING DEPTH WORLD RECORD

IN BOESMANSGAT CAVE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Photos TEAM Text KAREN VAN DEN OEVER

KAREN VAN DEN OEVER WOMENS SCUBA DIVING DEPTH WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT ON 27 OCTOBER 2022, BOESMANSGAT CAVE, MOUNT CARMEL SAFARIS FARM, NORTHERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA

Breaking the womans world depth record for scuba has been a personal goal of mine since about 2004/2005 when Verna van Schaik and Nuno Gomes respectively broke the female and male depth records. Since being a member of the Wits University Underwater Club, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to know both these individuals and their achievements were a large inspiration for the attempt on this record. I started technical diving under the tutelage of Nuno Gomes at Wits Underwater Club and continued to develop as a technical diver after leaving Wits Underwater Club when myself and my now husband started our own dive club/ dive school called Somewhere Out There Diving where I have been involved as a part owner ever since.

The idea of Somewhere Out There Diving was to create a business entity for the purposes of out of the ordinary, expedition type diving trips and this married up well with the technical diving endevours that have been embarked upon as part of the leadup to the world record attempts.

I started SCUBA diving in 2001 and proceeded into the realm of technical diving in 2006 and have gradually and progressively built-up experience and skills to the extent where I was sufficiently competent and comfortable to attempt the women’s SCUBA diving depth record.

The first women’s depth record attempt dive took place on the 26th March 2021 in the Boesmansgat Cave, Mount Carmel Safaris Farm, Northern Cape, South Africa. On my descent I passed the first 2 tags (226 m and 231 m) and upon reaching the 236 m tag I hesitated briefly considering if I should continue to the next tag but decided to stop at the 3rd tag of 236 m. I clipped the 236 m tag off the line and onto a d-ring attached to my dive computer strap for this purpose and then proceeded to inflate my wings to start my ascent. However, when I inflated my wings, nothing happened, I was not starting to ascend, something was not right. I then started to fin, trying to assist my ascent by swimming upwards and by pulling myself up on the record line. I started to slowly ascend. However, exerting oneself at that depth is not a good idea, due to the density of the gas, developing hypercapnia will occur very quickly with exertion. The exertion of finning and pulling myself up on the line did cause me to become out-of-breath and I struggled to catch my breath again. To make matters worse, whilst pulling myself up along the line, I got snagged on the 226 m tag which I had to unclip and drop to free myself. When I reached 211 m I briefly stopped and it was then that I felt the tug on one of my legs, it was at this point that I realized that my legs and fins had become tangled in what looked like polypropylene line that was attached to something at the bottom of the cave. I managed to shake off the line and was then able to continue my ascent. This was a very close call and so it took me some time (a few months) before I decided that I wanted to go back and do it again. My target for the first record dive had been 250 m and I still had a goal of reaching 250 m, and I eventually decided to try again.

So I found myself back at Boesmansgat in October 2022.

In the days preceding the record attempt, the dive team placed the stage shot line in the cave and over a number of dives, to different depths, placed stage cylinders with a variety of gas mixtures that would be needed for the record attempt dive on this line. Once complete, the record line, with the necessary depth tags, was placed and no further diving was allowed before the main record attempt dive.

The women’s depth record attempt dive took place on the 27th October 2022 in the Boesmansgat Cave, Mount Carmel Safaris Farm, Northern Cape, South Africa. The whole team had an early start, waking up at about 4 am that morning in order that the dive could start as early as possible. This meant that the team descended down the hole to the waters’ edge whilst a beautiful dawn was breaking over the rim of the hole. The intention was to start the dive at 6.30 am, but eventually got underway with my descent just before 7 am that morning. I descended to 30 m where I switched gases and then continued to 110 m where I again switched gases and dropped off stage cylinders. After switching gases at 110 m I finned over from the stage line to the record line and began my descent to 246.56 m. My descent was slower than I had planned for and for this reason I used more gas on the descent than I had planned for and so had to turn a little earlier than I had hoped for.

I clipped the depth tag onto a d-ring on my dive computer strap, at this point I realized that I had mild HPNS (high pressure nervous syndrome) as my hand was shaking and I struggled a little to clip the tag onto myself. I then inflated my wings to start my ascent. My first support diver Peter Reid was at 209 m and I passed him on my ascent to the surface, he later caught up with me at approx 160 m. Again, back at 110 m I swam over to the stage shot line where I picked up additional cylinders and did my first gas switch for the ascent. I also met another support diver at 110 m (Don Hauman). At 60 m I met another 2 support divers – the support divers at 60 m were supposed to be Jakob Item and Atish Dayal – Jakob Iten came down but then later Joseph Birtles arrived and not Atish Dayal (I later found out that Atish had a problem with his drysuit and had to swop out with Joseph Birtles who was supposed to meet me at 30 m). At 30 m I again had 2 support divers (Atish Dayal, in place of Joseph Birtles, and Francois Bain). From 30 m upwards the support team started bringing me fluids to drink. At 18 m I met additional support divers (Hani Williams and Iain Hickman).

Handing tag to Theo van Eden

After dive with my husband Francois Bain

Once I surfaced, I handed the depth tag to Theo van Eeden one of the impartial witnesses. The total dive time was 8 hrs and 11minutes, with 14 mins and 50 secs spent on the descent.

The dive went incredibly well and I really enjoyed the dive. On my ascent from 246 m I saw the polypropylene line that I had got tangled in on the previous record dive. The end of that line is at approx. 169 m and it runs all the way to the bottom, I considered swimming over to the line and tugging on it but thought better of it. I was very lucky that on this dive that the record line was placed a few meters away from this line so there was no danger of entanglement.