Book description
A true story of death and survival in the world's most dangerous sport,
cave diving. Two friends plunge 900 ft deep into a water-filled crater
in the Kalahari Desert to raise the body of a diver who had perished
there a decade before. Only one returns. Unquenchable heroism and
complex human relationships amid the perils of extreme sport.
On New Year's Day, 2005, David Shaw travelled halfway around the world
on a journey that took him to the Kalahari Desert of South Africa, to a
site known locally as Boesmansgat: Bushman's Hole. His destination was
nearly 900 feet below the surface.
On 8 January, he stepped into the water. He wore and carried on him
some of the most advanced diving equipment ever developed. Mounted to a
helmet on his head was a video camera. David Shaw was about to attempt
what had never been done before, and he wanted the world to see.
He descended. About fifteen feet below the surface was a fissure in the
dolomite bottom of the basin, barely wide enough to admit him and his
equipment and the aluminum tanks slung under his shoulders. He slipped
through the opening, and disappeared from sight, leaving behind the
world of light and life.
Then, a second diver descended through the same crack in the stone.
This was Don Shirley, Shaw's friend and frequent dive partner, one of
the few people in the world qualified to follow where Shaw was about to
go. In the community of extreme diving, Don Shirley was a master among masters.
Twenty-five minutes later, one of the men was dead. The other was in
mortal peril, and would spend the next 10 hours struggling to survive,
existing literally from breath to breath.
What happened that day at Bushman's Hole is the stuff of nightmarish
drama, juxtaposing classic elements of suspense with an extreme
environment beyond most people's comprehension. But it's also a
compelling human story of friendship, heroism, unswerving ambition and
of coming to terms with loss and tragedy. 'At the bottom of the
biggest underwater cave in the world, Dave Shaw found the body of a
young man who had disappeared ten years earlier. What happened after
Shaw promised to go back is nearly unbelievable - unless you believe in
ghosts.' Outside Magazine, USA Phillip Finch is a journalist and
author of more than ten books, both novels and non-fiction. He began his
professional life as a 19-year-old reporter for the Washington Daily
News; he moved on to the San Francisco Examiner and later became a
front-page columnist for the Peninsula Times Tribune in Palo Alto.
Formerly a member of an alpine search-and-rescue team, he has had a long
interest in extreme sports and the people who pursue them. He is also an
experienced cave diver.
