MX Bones

I am about 300 meters into an underwater cave in Mexico floating above human remains trying to photograph and document the positions of the human bones and a skull below me. This is the most stress I have ever experiences on a dive, I think.

And I have to stay alive as there are many ways to die when cave diving, but ultimately it is running out of air, so drowning, that will kill you. Cave diving has a reputation for being dangerous, and it for sure there are risks so it may come as a surprise that I am very risk adverse. I will plan and follow protocols to do this this safest way. Yet when I describe crawling through cave passages so small my head cannot be upright with silt and other debris obscuring visibility whilst hours away from the exit, I can understand why it may seem dangerous.

Most of the body’s system scream panic and attention, you are underwater, in darkness and in confined spaces so naturally stress levels are high. Cave diving is putting your body and mental capacity under extreme stress. With extensive training I have the skills to subdue the intuitively fright and act slow and considered, it helps that my personality is uber rational, so I generally solve problems and issues well under pressure – be that on a mountain, inside a glacier, underwater or on the edge of a volcano.

You may wonder how we got here? And why on earth am I doing this?

This expedition started weeks before I got wet. I got a call from Alessandro Reato, locally known with his nickname “Alex”. Alex is one of the world’s best cave divers and cartographers, he will go to survey caves were others give up and squeeze through gaps to continue an exploration. I have worked with Alex for some years now, and we have discovered new caves, removed both tanks from our harness to push them in front us so we could get through the tinniest opening to go where no other humans have been in modern history. Alex called me as he had found human bones in a cave system. The geological features of the cave have been formed over millennia, ice-ages changes the sea-level and since the caves connect to the sea the water level in the caves change accordingly so what is now submerged was dry ages ago.

You may wonder how we got here? And why on earth am I doing this?

You may wonder how we got here? And why on earth am I doing this?

I am about 300 meters into an underwater cave in Mexico floating above human remains trying to photograph and document the positions of the human bones and a skull below me. This is the most stress I have ever experiences on a dive, I think.