A great shot taken by spelunkers, using modern lighting to reveal what was previously unseen:
At 396ft up the room was once called “topless” because with the technology of the time their was no way to see all the way to the top.
During our New Year holiday in WA, we walked around a fantastic cave system with the kids – I do like caves (although the higher concentration of CO2 can make them a bit exhausting). I haven’t spelunked since I was a teen though.
What about you?
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My time in caves is mainly using SCUBA and I’m not certified (and don’t intend to certify) for true confined water diving, so I’m limited to caves with air at the top. I (still!) haven’t put up my photos from diving in Thailand in 2007, but one of the highlights was the same dive shown in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHWzCGb72gw We surfaced in the cave briefly as well to watch the waves breaking into the entrance above water. There wasn’t as much fish life at the entrance as shown in the video.
Oh, I don’t blame you for not going in for confined water diving – I can’t imagine enjoying that enough to overcome the apprehension at all. SCUBA into otherwise open cave systems I can imagine being rather wonderful.
I think for me it’s less about the apprehension?—?both primal fear of confined spaces and rational knowledge that many mistakes in confined water end in drowning?—?and more about the sheer burden. One tank weighs plenty enough. Confined needs at least two in shallow water (so you have an emergency backup) and deep diving often four or more (different mixes to control your exposure to partial pressures of nitrogen and oxygen and also to facilitate decompression) and it starts to sound like so much work.
Caverns with sufficient natural light to see by are beautiful to dive in, yes. I don’t know of anything near Sydney unfortunately so I can’t do it regularly. The Magic Point dive off Maroubra has a couple of caves you can look into, but they’re a grey nurse shark habitat and off-limits for entry because of shark preservation (and even so, a lot of the sharks have disappeared from the caves over about the last 18 months).
Here’s what’s in the caves at Magic Point!
[admin magic ~ tigtog]
Sand Tiger Shark at Shark Point on Flickr, originally uploaded by Darren A.
I do love exploring caves and having lived for many years in the Alps, I had the chance to visit some beautiful ones. However, I stick to the more touristy ones with nicely guided paths and lots of open spaces since it was visiting a cave near Grenoble that I discovered that I do actually suffer from claustrophobia… I never realised it before but that was the most horrible feeling I’ve ever had.
However, that said, I do enjoy virtual caving and this is a truly beautiful picture. I just don’t think I’ll go down there myself, thank you very much! 🙂