Ever wondered what it's like to dive to 100 meters, to be waiting alone in the dark, your only way back to safety a thin nylon line snaking away from you, up and up and up into the darkness and down and down and down into the blackness? Not a sound but your own breathing. Minutes ticking away. How long you can wait for your friend?
This book tells the story of more than 12 years of extreme deep cave diving, culminating in the setting of four Guinness Book of records for deep diving around the world.
From the foreword: “14 minutes to descend, 31 decompression stops to look forward to. My first decompression stop was at 190 metres. My first support diver only met me at 120 metres. I had to endure 12 hours and 20 minutes of decompression in rough seas. In the end, I had done something no one else ever had. I’d dived to 321.85 metres on open circuit scuba and returned to tell the tale. In the process, I’d breathed 90,000 litres of gas and had 15 backup divers working in relays to support me. This is the incredible place that over 12 years of ever deeper cave diving and exploration had brought me and my dedicated support team.
I have seen the author of this book go from a novice open water diver to become one of the most experienced technical diving instructors in South Africa. Joseph Emmanuel was with me for almost all my record breaking dives over the years. This book is his personal account of those expeditions. The book is about more than just diving. It’s about trust, and friendship, and faith in other people’s ability. It’s about determination to see a goal achieved. It’s about relationships and communication, logistics and planning. It’s about a journey that began more than 10 years ago and a destination that as explorers we will never really reach.” —Nuno Gomes, holder of two world records in deep diving including the cave diving record from 1996 to the present
(A special thank you to Matthew David for the book suggestion.)