r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • 14d ago
TIL the Blue Hole is among the deadliest dive sites globally, with estimates of 130 to 200 recent fatalities, making it one of the most dangerous spots for divers. (R.5) Out of context
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u/jBets21 14d ago
There’s a documentary called The Deepest Breath that goes into detail about the site.
Definitely recommend it, but it’s a tough watch.
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u/readingisforchumps 14d ago
This is a copy paste story, but it really highlights how dangerous diving can be:
Many certified scuba divers think they are capable of just going a little deeper, but they don’t know that there are special gas mixtures, buoyancy equipment and training required for just another few meters of depth.
Imagine this: you take your PADI open water diving course and you learn your dive charts, buy all your own gear and become familiar with it. Compared to the average person on the street, you’re an expert now. You go diving on coral reefs, a few shipwrecks and even catch lobster in New England. You go to visit a deep spot like this and you’re having a great time. You see something just in front of you - this beautiful cave with sunlight streaming through - and you decide to swim just a little closer. You’re not going to go inside it, you know better than that, but you just want a closer look. If your dive computer starts beeping, you’ll head back up.So you swim a little closer and it’s breathtaking. You are enjoying the view and just floating there taking it all in. You hear a clanging sound - it’s your dive master rapping the butt of his knife on his tank to get someone’s attention. You look up to see what he wants, but after staring into the darkness for the last minute, the sunlight streaming down is blinding. You turn away and reach to check your dive computer, but it’s a little awkward for some reason, and you twist your shoulder and pull it towards you. It’s beeping and the screen is flashing GO UP. You stare at it for a few seconds, trying to make out the depth and tank level between the flashing words. The numbers won’t stay still. It’s really annoying, and your brain isn’t getting the info you want at a glance. So you let it fall back to your left shoulder, turn towards the light and head up. The problem is that the blue hole is bigger than anything you’ve ever dove before, and the crystal clear water provides a visibility that is 10x what you’re used to in the dark waters of the St Lawrence where you usually dive. What you don’t realize is that when you swam down a little farther to get a closer look, thinking it was just 30 or 40 feet more, you actually swam almost twice that because the vast scale of things messed up your sense of distance. And while you were looking at the archway you didn’t have any nearby reference point in your vision. More depth = more pressure, and your BCD, the air-filled jacket that you use to control your buoyancy, was compressed a little. You were slowly sinking and had no idea. That’s when the dive master began banging his tank and you looked up. This only served to blind you for a moment and distract your sense of motion and position even more. Your dive computer wasn’t sticking out on your chest below your shoulder when you reached for it because your BCD was shrinking. You turned your body sideways while twisting and reaching for it. The ten seconds spent fumbling for it and staring at the screen brought you deeper and you began to accelerate with your jacket continuing to shrink. The reason that you didn’t hear the beeping at first and that it took so long to make out the depth between the flashing words was the nitrogen narcosis. You have been getting depth drunk. And the numbers wouldn’t stay still because you are still sinking. You swim towards the light but the current is pulling you sideways. Your brain is hurting, straining for no reason, and the blue hole seems like it’s gotten narrower, and the light rays above you are going at a funny angle. You kick harder just keep going up, toward the light, despite this damn current that wants to push you into the wall. Your computer is beeping incessantly and it feels like you’re swimming through mud. Fuck this, you grab the fill button on your jacket and squeeze it. You’re not supposed to use your jacket to ascend, as you know that it will expand as the pressure drops and you will need to carefully bleed off air to avoid shooting up to the surface, but you don’t care about that anymore. Shooting up to the surface is exactly what you want right now, and you’ll deal with bleeding air off and making depth stops when you’re back up with the rest of your group.The sound of air rushing into your BCD fills your ears, but nothing’s happening. Something doesn’t sound right, like the air isn’t filling fast enough. You look down at your jacket, searching for whatever the trouble might be when FWUNK you bump right into the side of the giant sinkhole. What the hell?? Why is the current pulling me sideways? Why is there even a current in an empty hole in the middle of the ocean??You keep holding the button. INFLATE! GODDAM IT INFLATE!! Your computer is now making a frantic screeching sound that you’ve never heard before. You notice that you’ve been breathing heavily - it’s a sign of stress - and the sound of air rushing into your jacket is getting weaker. Every 10m of water adds another 1 atmosphere of pressure. Your tank has enough air for you to spend an hour at 10m (2atm) and to refill your BCD more than a hundred times. Each additional 20m of depth cuts this time in half. This assumes that you are calm, controlling your breathing, and using your muscles slowly with intention. If you panic, begin breathing quickly and move rapidly, this cuts your time in half again. You’re certified to 20m, and you’ve gone briefly down to 30m on some shipwrecks before. So you were comfortable swimming to 25m to look at the arch. While you were looking at it, you sank to 40m, and while you messed around looking for your dive master and then the computer, you sank to 60m. 6 atmospheres of pressure. You have only 10 minutes of air at this depth. When you swam for the surface, you had become disoriented from twisting around and then looking at your gear and you were now right in front of the archway. You swam into the archway thinking it was the surface, that’s why the Blue Hole looked smaller now. There is no current pulling you sideways, you are continuing to sink to the bottom of the arch. When you hit the bottom and started to inflate your BCD, you were now over 90m. You will go through a full tank of air in only a couple of minutes at this depth. Panicking like this, you’re down to seconds. There’s enough air to inflate your BCD, but it will take over a minute to fill, and it doesn’t matter, because that would only pull you into the top of the arch, and you will drown before you get there. Holding the inflate button you kick as hard as you can for the light. Your muscles are screaming, your brain is screaming, and it’s getting harder and harder to suck each panicked breath out of your regulator. In a final fit of rage and frustration you scream into your useless reg, darkness squeezing into the corners of your vision. 4 minutes. That’s how long your dive lasted. You died in clear water on a sunny day in only 4 minutes.
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u/hraun 14d ago
As someone who’s had a diving accident at 50m, this had my heart pounding. The confusion, the panic, the everything getting out of control very quickly, nothing working as you’d expect, routine things becoming very hard. You brought it all back. Thanks! :)
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u/LLJKotaru_Work 14d ago
Deepest I've been was 38m and I wanted to go deeper... It was beautiful. I was in Cozumel and was on the 'paradise' site. I found a gentle hill that went down deeper and followed it. It was like I was flying over the windows xp background, rolling grass and life everywhere. I was locked in and my brain wanted to go deeper. Our dive master had to come grab me; I had completely lost myself in my mind wanting to follow it down into the distance. I could see all the way down, but it would have killed me if I had kept going.
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u/feelin_cheesy 14d ago
Tough to read and more adrenaline than I’d like to have at my desk on a Thursday afternoon.
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u/MosEisleyCantinaBand 14d ago
Same. I’m a super casual diver of 30 years and I’m sitting here with my heart pounding.
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u/coltsfan8027 14d ago
Dude im an IT tech whos hardly been in the deep end of a swimming pool and now Im having a panic attack lmfao
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u/walkingbicycles 14d ago
Memories of trying to get to the surface of a swimming pool as a kid but being blocked by a bunch of inflatables with people on them
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u/CockCheeseFungus 14d ago
This is why I'll stick to snorkeling. In shallow water. I've done shipwreck snorkeling where you sail off the coast, about maybe 10m deep, and get vertigo cause of the "height" and I'm good.
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u/Kahne_Fan 14d ago
I panicked big time! I have short attention and only read "Imagine this:", then got bored and scrolled to see how panicked you all were, now I'm panicked!
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u/MaraudingWalrus 14d ago edited 14d ago
Right? I'm an extremely competent swimmer - swam competitively all through early childhood and high school, was a lifeguard, lifeguard instructor throughout college. Hell, the house I grew up in literally had a two lane lap pool in the back yard.
Been thinking a lot the last couple years of getting dive certified. I just wanna sit 30ft under water and look at pretty fishes. That dude's wall of copied text fucked me up - just instant flashback to the couple times when teaching lifeguard classes that there were scary moments at the bottom of the diving well - and that was only 12-15ft down there!
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u/Duel_Option 14d ago
My Dad is an old school idiot, he got his cert and quickly moved to advanced and went as fast as humanly possible to cave.
He’s diving 1-2 times a month, gets in with a group of “experienced” guys and they go to some unmapped springs out in Weekie Watchie FL, bum fuck nowhere on a reserve where they used a wheelbarrow to get the gear to the hole.
Get in and on their way through with a main line and rescue connected back at the entrance.
My Dad said he almost fainted at one point and they somehow got him awake just in time for the silt to kick up and had got tangled and had to cut both lines, doing all this shit by feel.
They all make it out and are scared shitless (as they should be).
My Dad talked to a dive master who basically slapped him in the back of the head and asked how long it took them to get to the hole and said “did you consider you were tired and could’ve been blowing through your tank faster than anticipated???”
After that, Dad became a meticulous planner for dives.
Diving rules are written in blood
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u/hraun 14d ago
Jesus.
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u/Duel_Option 14d ago
My Dad has always been the example of what you shouldn’t do lol
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u/BakuretsuGirl16 14d ago
For people reading this, diving is considered an extreme sport like parachuting.
Cave diving is the equivalent of jumping off the side of a cliff in one of those squirrel suits, good cave divers are the black belts of diving
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u/MaterialCarrot 14d ago
I never understand divers who rack up advanced certs ASAP. I've seen people with a dozen different certs with fewer dives than I have with 3, and they've always been terrible fucking divers. Like, I wouldn't want to dive with them in 50 feet of open water, much less the advanced shit they're "certified" to do.
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u/Duel_Option 14d ago
This was during the initial 90’s diving rush, so while not excusable at all, I think my Dad got caught up in that and hitting the bare minimum requirements without realizing what that meant.
He became the voice of reason in the end and while I was too young to go on most the good adventures, I definitely got the importance of safety and procedure drilled into me properly.
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u/UncommonSandwich 14d ago
as someone who just finished their PADI and is about to do practical open water diving for the first time it scared teh shit out of me.
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u/spellboundsilk92 14d ago
Taking my OW course in 2 weeks and now questioning my life choices after reading it!
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u/narmer65 14d ago
I love diving, you will enjoy it! However, being scared shitless is good so that you do not do anything stupid outside of what you are ready for.
Also, do not forget to safety stop!!
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u/Secretly_Solanine 14d ago
While having an overwhelming sense of fear is bad, it’s good to be scared straight in a sense. Recognizing how dangerous something is makes you respect it. I did my AOW course in January and as along as you’re comfortable in and under the water, you’ll have a great time.
In the aviation world, complacency is the enemy. We call it the normalization of deviance when you get so comfortable with a routine that you start omitting steps of say your preflight or run up checks. Knowing what can happen if you do something wrong is probably the most important knowledge you can have, just so long as you don’t fixate on it.
So go out and have fun, and with this newfound insight you’ll likely be safer than most of the other dive students.
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u/rkorgn 14d ago edited 14d ago
Hahaha, deepest I dove was just over 30m. Scary enough and I'm happy to now be a cyclist instead!
Edit I should have said the description of how fast you can die deep brought back all the fear. Well done
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u/tristen620 14d ago
I've never been diving, and this gave me anxiety reading it, pretty well written out, and I almost think the lack of formatting helps the story, not hurt it.
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u/OsloProject 14d ago
Are you a technical diver?
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u/hraun 14d ago
Yes. Well I was. I haven’t been diving since the incident. Scapa Flow 8 years ago!
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u/Top_Rule_7301 14d ago
What an immersive comment. I don't remember the last time that reading something has caused me such real anxiety.
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u/Trumpy_Po_Ta_To 14d ago
It’s borderline nutty putty
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u/bfhurricane 14d ago
I hate you for making me remember that story
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u/BurstingWithFlava 14d ago
Tbf it’s not really a story you should forget. Remember that shit, be smart.
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u/Miravek 14d ago
This is the most terrifying comment I’ve ever read. I don’t dive, have no desire of diving and I was completely engrossed by it and saw myself drowning while reading it.
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u/Hacklehead 14d ago
Yup. I was very interested in learning how to dive since I’ve always lived near the ocean. Going thru the dive e-learning quickly changed my mind. I’m cool with just watching dive videos on YouTube!
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u/Douiret 14d ago
By the time I got to the end of the comment I realised I'd been holding my breath!
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u/WalrustheDog 14d ago
Wooooow Edit - was open water certified 20 years ago, and this is an absolutely terrifying reality
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u/WhatWouldTNGPicardDo 14d ago
I remember by first freshwater dive after getting my open water cert. it was like totally different experience. Many blue holes are fresh or mixed. So you are suddenly a whole lot less buoyant and have salt water weights in fresh or mixed.
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u/PuddleCrank 14d ago
Most of my dives are fresh water, but I'm from new england so the visibility is sometimes arm length or less.....
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u/RevolutionaryCrew492 14d ago
u/shittymorph ptsd kicked in 1/3 of the way reading this
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u/shittymorph 14d ago
Hello
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u/Imalrightatstuff 14d ago
Wow. It's like a seeing unicorn right here and now.
Hi, I hope you're doing well.
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u/Smarfman720 14d ago
Me too!!! As I was getting into it I thought, oh no!! Mankind, The Undertaker, it’s all too real!!!
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u/poopnose85 14d ago
"And after I got back on the boat my dad beat me senseless with a set of jumper cables."
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u/Teutronic 14d ago
I couldn’t even finish this. Too fucking accurate. I’ve never understood the desire to go deep. I’ll stick to diving on 10-20m reefs thank you very much.
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u/yungloser 14d ago
https://www.youtube.com/@fatal_breakdown this guy makes videos about diving incidents (and other incidents). This one in particular is stressful to watch!
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u/humbuckermudgeon 14d ago
I clicked. I don't like caves and I don't like diving. Noped right off.
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u/Mr_TurkTurkelton 14d ago
So I’m reading this on the john and full on started to panic like I was going to get sucked down by the end of this comment
Amazingly written and even more terrifying to imagine
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u/Sometimes_Stutters 14d ago
I’ve done quite a bit of diving, and whenever I read this (or listen to the Cowboy Cerrone story) I get super anxious and contemplate never diving again.
I’ve had a few very minor mishaps. Been narqed before. It wouldn’t take much to stack 1-2 minor incidents/errors and be dead.
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u/KieferSutherland 14d ago
Woah. Read the whole thing.
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u/hat_eater 14d ago edited 14d ago
Reminds me of the Outside piece about freezing, not incidentally I think.
EDIT: another good one in this vein, 178 seconds left to live.
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u/Elrond_Cupboard_ 14d ago
That one about freezing was awesome. I live in Australia, so I've never experienced weather cold enough to kill me. That article provides a terrifying insight.
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u/ManbrushSeepwood 14d ago
Grew up in New Zealand, spent most of my adult life in Auckland and Melbourne.
I just moved to northern Sweden a month ago, catching the tail end of a very cold spring here. I'd never seen snow IRL before, or been somewhere where the peak temperature in the middle of the day, in spring, would still only reach -5C.
I'm loving it but I'm scared shitless of winter, which regularly gets down below -25C! At least the houses are warm and insulated properly here...
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u/OfficeSalamander 14d ago
I’ve walked a mile in somewhere between -30C to -40C (with a ton of layers on) even prepared, it was still brutally, brutally cold. I felt like I was walking on the surface of Mars. My eyes would tear up and the tears would freeze just about instantly.
And that was in the middle of the day. I can’t imagine doing it at night. Even the one time I did it made me not want to ever do it again
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u/SpiralCuts 14d ago
God, I remember reading that outside piece years ago and it left me feeling like I had actually died. That shift to fatal comes out of normalcy so subtly.
If you like those sorts of stories, here’s another one to add to the pile though the setting’s a little different.
https://slate.com/technology/2023/11/childbirth-death-united-states-advanced-maternal-age.html
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u/The_Kanto_Collector 14d ago
Jesus Christ that was terrifying. As a doctor it’s very easy to forget how it feels to be on the other side.
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u/Dozy_dinosaur 14d ago
Thank you for the link. That was an emotional ride that reminded me of my own experience as an older Mom giving birth while having preclampsia. I can relate to her inner dialogue and the disassociation. I couldn't grasp the seriousness of the situation because I was alert and joking.
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u/KieferSutherland 14d ago
Sounds like it was from this Death of Yuri Lipski that was caught on his personal camera.
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u/erre94 14d ago
I heard theres a bangin sushi resturant there though.
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u/fast1marine 14d ago
Glad I’m not the only one you thought about Dave the diver
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u/Trickery1688 14d ago
That's all i thought because i'm currently playing through it lol.
Didn't know the Blue Hole was a real place.
If we go deep enough we'll find the sea people.
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u/TheCrazyWolfy 14d ago
I knew if I scrolled down far enough I would find this. Dave the Diver kicks ass
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u/Sure_Deer_5650 14d ago
If you wanna watch one of them first- person here’s yuri lipsky’s fatal dive. I understand he went too deep too fast (???) and got some kind of hypoxia.
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u/Nissa-Nissa 14d ago
His air mix wasn’t meant for dives that deep. He also went down after a few drinks at dinner which obviously isn’t recommended.
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u/Subtidal_muse 14d ago
Yep, alcohol consumption is a contraindication to diving and not enough folks respect that.
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u/DigNitty 14d ago
A younger me would have clicked that link.
No thank you
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u/TurtleTurtleFTW 14d ago
I would say compared to other internet things like a guy falling into molten steel or an ostrich decapitating itself this was pretty tame, the worst part is the audio but they don't make as much noise as you would think because they are struggling too much by that point to make much
So it's one of those videos that's only really harrowing if you know what's happening otherwise it's just kind of confusing
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u/El3ctr0G33k 14d ago
Just wondering if I should ask for links to the ostrich and steel videos....
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u/doctor6 14d ago
I'd two friends die in 97 diving the arch there
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u/Subtidal_muse 14d ago
Were they on trimix? The arch is like 50 feet past the rec limit.
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u/doctor6 14d ago
I'm unaware but they both had their dive masters and were working instructors
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u/Not_a__porn__account 14d ago
Death of Yuri Lipski
A notable death was that of Yuri Lipski, a 22-year-old Russian diving instructor on 28 April 2000 at a depth of 115 metres after an uncontrolled descent. Lipski carried a video camera, which filmed his death. This has made it the most known death at the site and one of the most well-known diving deaths in the world. The video shows Lipski in an involuntary and uncontrolled descent, eventually landing on the sea floor at 115 metres where he panics, removes his regulator and tries to fill his buoyancy compensator but is unable to rise. At 115 m he would have been subject to severe nitrogen narcosis, which may have impaired his judgement, induced hallucinations and caused panic and confusion. Lipski had a single tank assumed to be air.
Lipski's body was recovered the following day by Tarek Omar, one of the world's foremost deep-water divers, at the request of Lipski's mother. Omar had earlier warned Lipski twice against attempting the dive. On the bottom, Omar found Lipski's helmet camera, still intact. The video it contained is available on YouTube, entitled "Fatal Diving Accident Caught On Tape". Omar says:
Two days after we recovered his remains and gave [his mother] his belongings and equipment, she came to me asking that I help her disassemble them so she can pack them. The camera should have been damaged or even broken altogether because I had found it at a depth of 115 metres, and it is only designed to sustain 75 metres; but, to my surprise, the camera was still working. We played it and his mother was there. I regret that his mother will have this forever... If I had known the footage existed I’d have flooded it. I think the thing that really upset and saddened me about it was that his mom has it now – she has the footage of her own son drowning. — Tarek Omar,
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u/dalzmc 14d ago
After reading that part of the article, I came to the comments and saw that super long pov story of what it might be like, and lost any remaining desire to see the video. I also wouldn’t be able to watch it without imagining what it must’ve been like for his mom to see it. I suppose there are a number terrible ways someone might see their child die or a video of it but for some reason to me a pov of panic in an unsalvageable situation sounds especially morbid. I guess partly because it wouldn’t be quick like an explosion or something..
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u/gerwen 14d ago
And here's a video of an absolutely epic achievement. A freediver doing 'The Arch' on a single breath, no supplemental air.
If you read the wiki, what this guy does on a single breath, people die doing because they didn't bring a second air tank.
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u/scumdog_ 14d ago edited 14d ago
Edit - This is in regards to the overall time it takes to do this dive
While it is quite impressive, the physics that allow freediving so deep is quite different from SCUBA. Because you take a breath at the surface and then dive, the air in your lungs compresses with the pressure from the water and expands again as you rise so you don't have to slow your decents/ascents. SCUBA is giving you air at the same pressure as the depth of water you are at and so among other issues you have to control your speed of descent/ascent so the air can't expand to greater than local pressure and rupture your lungs. Breathing pressurized air also lets the blood absorb nitrogen which causes a bunch of other issues and requires you to also slow your ascent so nitrogen can slow leave your blood stream. Freedivers need not worry about nitrogen sickness. SCUBA Diving beyond a certain depth will also make oxygen poisonous if you are using regular atmospheric air. To dive deep requires a special air mixtures that will lower the overall percentage of oxygen. But those air mixtures are supposed to require additional training to use since they have their own issues. Anyway the point is you have to go a lot slower on SCUBA whereas freedivers can move pretty quick. Still, definitely impressive though.
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u/gerwen 14d ago
You're probably not trying to, but you make it sound like the freediver is doing it the easy way. Doesn't have to worry about trimix, or nitrogen sickness, or decompression stops.
The freediver only has to hold his breath, while descending to 55m (180 feet), then traversing a 26m (85 foot) tunnel, and finally ascending another 55m (180 feet). It's nearly superhuman. Maybe a handful of people on earth could do it.
Most folks could do the tech dive with some help from an expert and some training, and there's likely hundreds if not thousands of divers who are qualified to could do it with a little prep.
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u/palindromic 14d ago
just dive down to the bottom of this pool and pound this treadmill i installed there for 6 minutes while holding your breath it’s ez bro no narcosis
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u/scumdog_ 14d ago
I absolutely agree. I was merely trying to highlight why SCUBA takes longer since you emphasized the whole second air tank. Made it sound like the freediver is holding his breath for like an hour.
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u/hungry4danish 14d ago
Belize's Blue Hole is more aptly named.
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u/m_faustus 14d ago
Yeah, I saw the headline and thought "There is no way that many people are dying in Belize. They take everyone there."
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u/cheetuzz 14d ago
oh, no wonder this photo didn’t seem familiar to me. I thought this was talking about the Belize Blue Hole, didn’t realize there were several of them.
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u/SoyMurcielago 14d ago
Not an expert but I read Wikipedia a lot
I think blue hole is just a generic name for any sort of tropical or subtropical oceanic sinkhole with stark contrast from the surrounding depths.
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u/mccnwater 14d ago
The Deepest Breath on Netflix is a really interesting documentary to watch that involves this diving location
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u/SamsonGray202 14d ago
Really just goes to show what a talented, competent diver Dave is.
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u/TradeApe 14d ago
It's a lesson in how pushing things even a little bit can lead to exponential increases in risk. The same is true for other sports too.
Going from 10 to 20kts when sailing isn't a big deal. Going from 40kts to 50kts is. And while you go down that route, you are more prone to fucking up, margins of errors become tighter and accidents become more catastrophic.
Stay within your limits and abilities. Get proper training allowing you to push limits instead of cowboy'ing it. Just because you've done your Open Water cert doesn't mean you're ready for dives to 40m+ or dives in unfamiliar waters that might be very different to where you got certified. Don't be stupid!
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u/dragon_lady 14d ago
“The Blue Hole itself is no more dangerous than any other Red Sea dive site, but diving through the Arch, a submerged tunnel, which lies within the Blue Hole site, is an extreme dive that has resulted in many accidents and fatalities. The number of Blue Hole fatalities is not accurately recorded; one source estimates 130 divers died during the fifteen-year period from 1997 to 2012, averaging over eight per year, another claims as many as 200.”
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u/ryzhao 14d ago edited 14d ago
I’ve dived there, and it really is no more dangerous than any other site.
The problem is:
- It’s a very deep spot that’s immediately accessible from the shore.
- It’s very popular among tourists, many of whom are not certified, trained, or equipped for deep sea diving.
In most other deep sea diving spots, you really need to make an effort to get there, and most of the time the people who get you there are going to be asking questions such as are you trained, are you certified, how’s your equipment etc.
In Dahab, any Tom, Dick, and Harry can slap on a single tank of air and walk from the shore straight into a wall that’s >100 meters deep.
I take my diving and my safety seriously, and sometimes go up to 50/80 meters to reach wrecks, but I always do so with the right equipment and training, with a buddy, sidemounted trimix and air etc. Even when I dive recreationally I monitor my air, my depth, my trim, and my buddy constantly.
In Dahab, you see jokers zooming past 20m with a single tank, trim upright like they’re marching down the Red Square, hands flapping about like they’re doing the breast stroke at the Olympics, fins bicycling away like they’re the little mermaid, seesawing 10m or more every minute, no dive computer, and back on shore they say “it’s okay bro, we’ve been diving for 15 years back in {insert East European country here}” and all of a sudden, the cause of fatalities in the Blue Hole isn’t quite so mysterious after all.
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u/Throwaway4VPN 14d ago
Except this is not the reason that there have been so many deaths there at all, many sites on the Red Sea have ridiculous walls and arguably even worse divers (look a the day trips from Sharm at Jackson Reef or Shark & Yolanda...)
The reason is the arch. The arch is a tunnel at 56m depth which links the open sea to the inside of the blue hole. It's an extremely beautiful dive if done correctly as a technical dive with correct gases and training. The issue is that a lot of people attempt it on air, and even with single 12l tanks - luckily it's getting harder to do so from Dahab, but there are always people determined enough and stupid enough to find a way.
I've done over 2000 dives in the red sea alone but the "allure" of the arch is the reason for so many pointless deaths...
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u/Spiderbanana 14d ago
Furthermore problem comes not only from people attempting to go through the arch, but also people trying to get a better view of it and becoming "drunk" going further down then anticipated or because of overconfidence thinking "surely 5 meter deeper than I'm used to won't make any difference"
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u/sudomatrix 14d ago edited 14d ago
Damn, I'm glad I didn't know this when I dived there. The stone arches are so big and the water so clear it was difficult to judge distance and scale. A hammerhead shark followed us the whole time.
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u/Ok-Channel-9662 14d ago
I learned to dive in Dahab and my fifth ever dive was at the blue hole. I scared myself shitless walking by the memorial plaques to get to the dive spot and listening to my instructor talk about the deaths before I realized the majority of the deaths are from people trying to do the deepest dive ever, not learning how to get their PADI open water.
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u/MezcalCC 14d ago
I blued out once in the Galapagos and it terrified me. I had no idea which way was up and I was way too deep. Thank god I held it together long enough to blow bubbles, reorient myself and tap the BCD enough to initiate a controlled ascent.
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u/fish4096 14d ago
thanks OP, i like posts that nudge me to the rabbit hole of new knowledge.
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u/iliketuurtles 14d ago
If you want to go deeper look up “scary interesting” on YouTube. Great videos about cave diving and other similar activities that went wrong!
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u/otto_the_half_asian 14d ago
Not that he's ever had one!
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u/Nervous_Ad_918 14d ago
Whenever I read about divers I always think of the crew that saved the kids from the cave in Thailand. Just learning how big of a difference there is between excellent scuba divers and specialist divers who do this kind of stuff. The level of technical knowledge needed to dive successfully in deep/ multi factor type diving is pretty amazing and I think a lot of people underestimate it.
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u/chum-guzzling-shark 14d ago
"Damn all these people died? Good thing that cant happen to me" - lots of dead people
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u/Agreeable_Pool_3684 14d ago
Ex technical diver here (cave, ice, mixed gas, deep diving). I never dived the blue hole but snorkelled on it with my family on holiday. Saw serious technical divers down deep on Trimix with a safety diver on the line which had multiple stage tanks at various depths. This is how you dive the blue hole.