Diving Items of Interest
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NORAD |
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Cave Diving |
A history of British Cave Diving and influential moments from the world cave diving community
| 1878 | Ottonelli dives to 23 metres in the Foutaine de Vauclause, France |
| 1880 | Lambert enters the flooded Severn Tunnel for 300 metres without a light to close a door. |
| 1922 | Casteret dives through two flooded sections of cave in the Grotte de Montespan, France. This is the first time a flooded section of cave passage is passed. |
| 1930 | Swildon's Hole, Mendip, sees the first
attempts by British divers, Balcombe and Shepard, to pass a flooded
section of cave (sump) in 1934. Divers using the bottom walking system enter the sumps in Wookey Hole, Mendip in 1935 with hard hat, lead boots and air pipes. In 1936 Balcombe adds an oxygen bottle and becomes self contained. |
| 1940 | War surplus equipment, such as Rebreathers,
begin to be used. Leakey passes sumps in Yorkshire caves during 1941 and 1944. The Cave Diving Group is formed in the UK in 1946 by Balcombe. Cousteau and Dumas dive to 46 metres depth in the Vauclause and nearly die during 1946. |
| 1950 | By bottom walking with rebreathers the
distances traversed increase. Buxton and Davies dive for 117m in Clapham Beck Head, Yorkshire in 1953. Compressed air cylinders used by Davies to reach 22 metres in Gough's Cave, Mendip, 1955. Davies explores Wookey Hole and is trapped on the other side of a sump for 3 hours in 1955. Buxton and Wells explore Wookey Hole using Nitrox rebreathers in 1957. |
| 1960 | Compressed air cylinders, wetsuits and
fins gain acceptance. Pierce in 1963 passes the terminal sump of the Gouffre Berger, France, then the deepest cave in the world. Clegg is killed in Lancaster Hole, Yorkshire in 1964. |
| 1970 | Long sump traverse occurs in Keld Head,
Yorkshire, Statham diving for 838 metres and creating a new British
record in 1976. Hasenmeyer, visiting from Germany, extends this to
1006m in 1978 creating a European record. Tragic accidents separately take the lives of divers Erith, Esser, Solari. |
| 1980 | Introduction of dry suits and
experimentation with mixed breathing gases make long, deep dives
possible. Hasenmeyer dives to a depth of 205 metres in the Vauclause in 1983. Parker in 1985 creates a new British depth record of 68m in Wookey Hole. Palmer discovers new dry cave in Gough's Cave, Cheddar after passing sump 2 in 1986. Yeadon, Watson and Crossley connect two Yorkshire caves by an underwater route and create the Three Counties cave system which extends for 60km. |
| 1990 | Advanced rebreathers appear, mixed gases
accepted, underwater digging of blocked caves. One of the longest through dives in the world is created by linking the Yorkshire caves of the Kingsdale System and King Pot in 1991. The decade sees the loss of three important divers, Rolland cave diving in Mexico, Parker cave diving in Bahamas and Palmer extreme deep diving in the Red Sea. British divers Brown, Cordingley, Carter, Foyle, Thomas, Scofield, aid top cave diver Isler on sponsored world record attempts in France at the Ressel and the Doux de Coly. |
| 2000 | Stanton passes Isler's limit in the Emergence de Ressel, France |