Deep under the eerie green water of Bushman?s Hole, down 800 and more feet lay a body of a boy who had disappeared 10 years earlier. When deep-water diver Dave Shaw decides to go back for the body, the things that happen are almost unbelievable: Unless you believe in ghosts.
"You focus on one thing." Peter Hurbst says. "You don't focus on the dive anymore. One thing becomes everything. And with Dave I think it became the body, the body, the body"
And so begins one of the most tragic, heartwarming and bravest tales of the century.
It all started with how it ended: Dave Shaw. Dave was a world famous deep-water diver, who set and broke many records during his lifetime.
What made Shaw set apart from other deep-water divers was the machinery that he used while he was diving. Most deep-water divers use a type of gear called an open-circuit scuba, which is what you see on TV. These types of divers are nicknamed 'bubble blowers' because that's exactly what they do. They breathe in icy mixes under water and then breathe them out again. We all know what happens when we let a breath out underwater at the swimming pool: bubbles of air float to the surface. But Dave Shaw dived on a piece of equipment called a rebreather. The name pretty much speaks for itself. With a rebreather, you use a controller and different types of gear to recycle the air you breathe out, carbon dioxide, and turn it back into breathable oxygen, right there under water.
Until Dave Shaw came along, rebreathers were not known for withstanding great depths, or even work properly at medium depths, at times. But not only did Dave Shaw use the rebreather, (his modified with a hammerhead controller and paraffin oil, which helps the gases in his scuba tank withstand greater depths) he out dived people on open circuit with a laugh. And yet, these rebreathers were part of his death, along with another down in Bushman's Hole.
Hold the questions inside your head for a moment or two. I'll explain everything in time. I suppose I should start where this big dive took place, which is in Bushman'?s Hole.
Bushman?'s Hole is a paradise for deep-water divers. It is the largest, and third most deep freshwater cave in the world. It is perfectly located on privately owned and, and attracts the challenge for divers all over the world. If you see the picture of Bushman's Hole's entrance, you'd think it was just another rare pond in the rumbling African landscape. But once you dive under past the claustrophobic chimney-like entrance, about 150 feet (about 45 meters) you reach the gigantic inner chamber, that to a diver, feels almost like a space walk. From the very top of the entrance to Bushman's Hole to the muddy bottom, it's a 927-foot drop. Dave Shaw hoped he wouldn't have to go that far.
The Big Dive
The first time Dave Shaw dived into Bushman's Hole, it was for the thrill of it. Only one other man beside himself had ever been to the bottom of the underwater cave, (this was Nuno Gomes in 1996) so this dive was purely for the enjoyment and the spice of it. But 10 minutes into his first dive at Bushman's, when Dave Shaw started looking for the bottom of the cave, he found something so much different. The dead body of the boy, Deon Dreyer, who had mysteriously disappeared while diving as a support diver in that very place 10 years ago. After countless hours of decompression time to reach the surface, Dave Shaw popped up to the surface, and looked into the face of his partner, Don Shirley and said "I want to try to take him out".
Deon Dreyer?s parents had decided, long ago, when they had lost their son, that if he had to die, Bushman's Hole was the right place. After all, Deon loved diving more than anything, and Bushman's was a beautiful final resting place, very fitting for a diver. But when Dave Shaw contacted Marie and Theo Dreyer to say "I will go and fetch your son's body." They agreed with a "Yes, absolutely yes." More than anything, the Dreyer?s realized, they wanted to see their boy again.
It is the morning of the big dive, and Dave Shaw, with his best friend and faithful diving partner Don Shirley, are suiting up to dive. Diving always has a very straightforward plan. As Nuno Gomes, a frequent Bushman diver said, "You don't think of a new plan while you are down there. It doesn't work. Your mind is clouded, you cannot do it." So, this dive, the big dive, obviously had a very strict, orderly and safe, safe plan.
There were almost 9 divers in the water that day, all in an assembly line, ending with Dave Shaw who was at the very bottom of the cave, going to retrieve the body. Up above Dave Shaw, waiting at about 720 feet is his Don Shirley, ready to help Dave with the body and give him extra gas cylinders when he comes up. Then, while Dave decompresses, Don Shirley will swim up a few hundred feet, and hand the body of Deon Dreyer (who is in a full body bag) to the next support diver, then Shirley will stay at that depth and decompress. And on and on that routine goes and until the very last support diver reaches the surface with the body. Any divers who needed more oxygen could pick up a few reserve cylinders on the way, following the cave line on the way up.
That was the plan. Obviously, as most well thought out, brilliant and safe plans go, it did not work out . . .
