those that find it don't come back because it's just so neat

Ooo a cool rock! Worth it!! dies

Aside from some fish which evolved with no eyes (which is kind of cool), the only other thing you are likely to find down there is a dead body that everyone decided was too dangerous to recover.

Are you sure what you're doing is worth it?

I dunno, the open water can be a bit worrisome too.

That’s a fact. Salvaging those ship wrecks gave me such anxiety. I died a few times by getting lost.

I've done training dives in man made quarries under zero visibility conditions. There's no way in hell I'd go into an actual cave under those conditions.

It was bad enough when you'd almost run into a purposefully placed sculpture or bathtub in that flooded quarry.

You had to do a scavenger hunt to find stuff to pass your training and it was super disorienting.

I don't know if PADI still does that sort of thing or if it was unique to my training center conditions but it was wild.

I'll stick to open water, thank you very much.

New fear unlocked

Yeah, this place has quickly diluted into "literally any image with text in it."

meirl

You took it further than I would. I'd listen to the sign these days, but there was absolutely a time that, that sign would have just been a challenge.

Edit: for you grammar nerds. Do I need that comma? It seems like it should be there, but it also seems superfluous at the same time.

Right? I haven't died yet!

You have to ignore many different warnings to even get to the area youre not supposed to be in! First and foremost, humans by design do not breathe water, therefore we have no reason to be under water.

I don't see any comments of people taking issue with it. But words do mean things, and some people like to speak with precision.

Basically yes. Once you go inside a cave like this, it gets dark real fast. You can't tell where "up" is and you can't find your way back. So these people often drown or suffocate.

In cave dive training, you learn how not to do that.

It's dark so requires torches (more than one as a backup) and very easy to get disoriented. You can easily get lost and run out of air. Risk of being blinded by silt even with a torch, leading to more risk of disoriented and getting lost. If anything goes wrong such as equipment malfunction then you don't have the option of going to the surface as you do in open water (albeit with the risk of a bend). It's often cramped with places to get stuck, snag equipment, or get tangled in your guideline. There are sharp rocks you can hit your head on.

Correct, with no visibility it's very hard to orient yourself

Fact: Bears eat beets

Off the top of my head, rope to put down Gide lines in case you get silted out so you have something to follow to get out.

Also extra everything, if your open water diving and you run out of air (or other critial equipment failure) you can roll the dice on the bends by going straight to the surface, not so with cave diving; your just going to drown.

I'm not a caver or a diver, but I've read a few stories about cave diving. A big one is a cable on a retracting reel. Caves which are frequently explored will have guide cables bolted along the walls for long stretches. You snap your cable onto these and then use it as a leash back to the guide. This allows you to explore off a certain distance without getting lost. You can always follow your own line back to the guide, and follow the guide back out. In an "unimproved" cave, you'd presumably want lots of extra line to build your own guides.

torches, iron pickage, some cooked beef, iron armour, 16 logs