Into the Abyss: The Lethal Lure of Bushman's Hole

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What drives people to embrace high-risk activities, even when the stakes are life-threatening? Join Ron, Doug, and Don as we humorously yet thoughtfully navigate the fascinating world of recklessness and daring exploits. We start by examining our own behaviors and using Ron's ranking system to gauge our comfort with risk. From tales of jujitsu to wilderness adventures, we discuss how different environments shape our perception of danger and what it means to truly be reckless.

Our conversation takes an exhilarating turn as we delve into the extreme sport of cave diving, a venture that teeters on the edge of human capability and survival. Through captivating stories, including the unforgettable record-breaking dive by Dave Shaw in Bushman's Hole, we explore how meticulous preparation and training can sometimes make the most dangerous activities seem less so. Hear firsthand accounts of the psychological and physical demands of these adventures, and learn about the unique challenges cave divers face in their pursuit of new depths.

Finally, we dive into the psychology behind adventure and risk-taking, examining how our personal inclinations towards danger evolve with age and life circumstances. We discuss the thrill of spontaneous experiences and the camaraderie found within adventurous communities. Reflect on how our quest for adventure might shift in a technology-driven world and ponder whether true exploration still exists. Whether you're an adrenaline junkie or someone who prefers the safety of the shore, this episode offers a compelling look at what it means to embrace risk and reward in life's grand adventure.

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Episode Transcript

Ron (00:15):
hello again.
Welcome to the uncannery.
My name is ron.
On to my left and the audiolisteners anywhere.
This is.

Doug (00:24):
Doug.

Ron (00:26):
And to his left.
Hey, I'm Don.

Doug (00:29):
It's weird we're in a triangle, so relative to what
left means.
That's very confusing.

Ron (00:37):
I think it's very clear, okay, a triangle is a point with
two lines coming from it One'sto the left and one's to the
right oh, okay, in in flat planegeometry yeah, but if you use
spherical geometry or I'm neverusing spherical geometry.

Doug (00:54):
I want you guys to know anytime I'm talking, it's never
spherical and on the contrary, Iwill only use spherical
geometry in every podcast thatwe do.

Ron (01:03):
That's good.

Doug (01:04):
We need that covered so that makes us balanced, fair and
balanced.

Ron (01:10):
We're a fair and balanced podcast and we want to talk to
you all today about somethingI've been thinking a lot about
and I'm wondering if it issomething you guys think about
ever, and I don't think it'sactually things we usually think
that much about.
I wanted to ask if you guys areconsider yourselves reckless
people slightly.

(01:30):
I I've created a chart or I'veranked how reckless I think each
of us is, from most reckless toleast reckless oh wow, I'm
willing to bet where do youthink I take?
the top spot interesting, that'sInteresting.

Don (01:44):
What's the definition of reckless?

Ron (01:46):
I think reckless to me means an idiot.
No.

Doug (01:50):
I also think I ranked number one on that chart.

Don (01:54):
I vote Doug too.

Ron (01:56):
Reckless to me means someone who is willing to engage
in potentially dangerousactivity because they see a
reward in it and that reward isis worth uh, risk worth a risky
behavior well, so like reward.

Don (02:13):
Like a fireman running into a burning building, like that's
a risky behavior, but thereward is that he saved somebody
.
Is that what you mean by reward?

Ron (02:20):
I don't think that's a reward, that's like a.
You have to do that, uh, causehe's a fireman.
I'm thinking like you get somesort of entertainment out of it,
you feel better.
Uh, yeah, maybe there is likean, an actual reward, like, oh,
if I, if I hit up this bank, Iwill, I will receive the reward
of money and I would say I don'tscore that high on reckless

(02:42):
behavior.

Doug (02:46):
I haven't looked at banks with that intention.
Unless I'm playing Grand TheftAuto, then that's always my
favorite thing to do.

Ron (02:51):
My chart goes like this I think I'm the least reckless
person here, and I think Don isthe second most reckless person
here, and I do think Doug is themost reckless.

Don (03:02):
What can I say?
And?

Ron (03:02):
here's my thing.
I think recklessness in mydefinition, my interpretation
I'm trying to present here today, has something to do with the
danger, a certain like howcomfortable you are.
Are you with a certain degreeof danger, right?
And I think I'm not at all.
I don't like danger at all.
I don't even want to go toHalloween horror nights because
there's a risk that I will beafraid and Don, I think you've

(03:25):
spent a lot of time in thewilderness.
You used to be outside.
I think outside is a place thatinvites more danger than
certainly inside Often yes, thatis the case.
So you have to learn to live inthat danger zone, right?
Yeah and Doug Cue the Top Gunsoundtrack.
Yep and Doug, you, I think, aresomewhat.
You engage in a lot ofaggressive physical activity.

(03:45):
There's a high risk of injury.

Doug (03:58):
To clarify for the listeners.

Ron (03:59):
I practice jujitsu.
So instead of I don't golooking for bar fights.
Not that you've told us yet,but I sometimes call you on
saturday night and you neverpick up and um uh, so bar fights
are only tuesdays, do we agree?
Do you think jujitsu issomething that counts as a as a
dangerous activity?

Doug (04:13):
inherently yes, even though there are ground rules to
take much of that out toprotect both people involved.
If they're rolling um, yeah,there's always risk involved
yeah, would you call jujitsu anextreme sport?
I suppose, well, I, becausewhen I hear extreme sport, I
think skateboarding, you know soif it's, extreme if, if it's in

(04:38):
that realm, yeah, there'sdanger involved in it.

Ron (04:41):
I think it's a dangerous sport yeah, don do you think
like uh, outdoor nearing, isthat what you guys call it?
No, no one's ever said thatword before if I go to
disneyland and I can't talk toan outdoor near but uh, would
you consider yourself amountaineer?
Did you ever dabble in that?

Don (05:01):
um, I don't.
So mountaineering usuallyimplies, um, like off trail
trekking or or like ice climbing, things like that.
And and no, I'm much more of aon the trail kind of a kind of a
guy, although there have beenoccasions where I've, uh, I've
had to cut from one trail toanother over some pretty rugged
passes, but uh, but no, Iwouldn't say I'm a mountaineer

(05:24):
outdoorsman, I think would bethat would be fair.

Ron (05:27):
So is.
There is a degree of uhrecklessness in being an
outdoorsman.

Don (05:32):
Well, see and so I'm thinking about this word
reckless cause.
There's an element of danger,of course, but one of the the
primary goals of learning theskill of outdoors, outdoor
hearing, um is uh is to reduce,to reduce that danger so so that
it's not a reckless behavior togo into the wilderness.
It would be a reckless behaviorto go into the wilderness if
you had no idea what you weredoing or you didn't have the

(05:54):
appropriate equipment orsupplies or you weren't prepared
for what you might encounterthere.
But the behavior in itself isnot reckless because you plan
ahead in order to avoid thatdanger.
But I was wondering about thejujitsu.
The same thing, right, like thepractice of jujitsu, like going
to jujitsu practice on Tuesdayat the gym or whatever, like the

(06:14):
intention is not that you leavethere injured or having injured
somebody else, but isn't thepurpose of learning the jujitsu
so that if there's an occasionin outside of the gym that you
need it and you're ready for it,and those occasions might be
more reckless than the preparingfor those occasions?

Doug (06:31):
I was going to say that my participation in training is
because I fear a recklessoccasion in which somebody does,
yeah, like in, in, in a momentof self-defense, yeah, you would
need to make a decision.
And so I was going to say italmost becomes less reckless
because the idea I've alwayslooked at it as preparation, a

(06:52):
potential preparation, um, whichI think, yeah, far less
reckless.
I guess it's very planned, uhwould you?

Don (07:00):
would you say that somebody who who comes up to you and
challenges you into a fight isbeing reckless because they
don't know how lethal your?

Doug (07:08):
hands are the grappling abilities I have.
Well, that is maybe the thingthat's most interesting.
Is everyone that I train with?
Like we are all so adverse tofighting.
Fighting, like all of us, Ithink, just have this unanimous
agreement that you know violenceis awful, even though that is

(07:29):
like what we practice so neverhaving been at the gym while
you're practicing I just havethis very strong image now of an
octagon of some kind andsomeone blows a whistle and you
all just scurry to the cornerand try to make yourself as
small as possible.

Don (07:41):
Is that how jiu-jitsu?

Doug (07:42):
works quite, not quite.
Um yeah, big mat space and, uh,several one-on-one like
partnerships that essentiallyyou're going between training
partners and working out fiveminute rounds, uh, grappling
each other.
But I like that a lot.

Ron (07:57):
But would we agree that these uh activities um have
certain inherent risks involvedwith them?
Right, like there's a less than0% chance that you could wind
up hurt doing one of thesethings or invite pain upon
yourself Absolutely.
Yeah, I want to talk to to date.

Don (08:14):
What's your danger, ron?

Ron (08:16):
Oh very little, absolutely nothing.

Doug (08:18):
I know one.
What I've seen.
This man make some riskydecisions at the Warhammer table
.
I've watched him push histroops forward.
Far too many have been pushedforward across the halfway point
of enemy lines in order to makesome risky decisions, to secure
battle points in our miniatureswar game that we play.

Ron (08:42):
And you've actually bring up a really good point, which is
I actually do really like risk,uh, frequently, like when I'm
playing a game I will take themost risky decision, because I
think that is the most fundecision if it gets pulled off,
then that is the most excitingthing that can happen yeah um,
but that is a situation in whichI myself, as a person, is in no
uh, yeah, there's no risk of methe dangers to your poor little

(09:05):
.

Don (09:05):
Yeah, toy soldiers, not to you.

Ron (09:07):
Yes, exactly, which is me, I would make a fantastic like a
member of a presidentialadministration or something like
that, um, where other peoplehave to do the suffering.
But what I wanted to talk abouttoday is um people who, um
invite this, these kinds ofrisks, into their lives
frequently.
In fact, they might even beaddicted to inviting of risks
into their lives frequently.
In fact, they might even beaddicted to inviting these risks
into their lives and theyengage in very what I think is

(09:31):
insane activity.
And I first learned about thiswhen I found this image on the
internet, I don't know, a coupleof years ago.
I'm gonna show this image toyou, doug.
Would you please describe it tous and even read it for us.

Doug (09:48):
Do we wanna start with the image or the words?
Image first I think we have aGrim Reaper who's so poorly
drawn.
He looks like I believe thathe's beckoning you, but it looks
like he's flipping you off.
It looks like he's flipping youoff.
We've got some divers itappears that are skeletons

(10:09):
laying at what looks like thebottom of the ocean and the
words very bold, typeface, bigletters stop, prevent your death
, go no farther.
And then we've got some bulletpoints here.
Fact more than 300 divers,including open water scuba
instructors, have died in caves,just like this one.
Fact you need training to dive.

(10:32):
You need cave training and caveequipment to cave dive, and
cave training, cave equipment,cave dive all underline.
Fact without cave training andcave equipment, divers can die
here.
Fact it can happen to you.
There's nothing in this caveworth dying for.
Don't go beyond this point.
And then there's the messagesprovided by a few organizations

(10:55):
at the bottom Very extreme.

Don (10:58):
I love it.
Well, that's an upliftingmessage.
That's fine.

Ron (11:01):
This is the kind of sign that would greet you if you were
recreationally diving and I'venever participated in a
recreation that had to tell meyou're going to die if you
continue doing this, and so Ithink I found that very
arresting, considered an extremesport.

(11:25):
It's probably considered one ofthe most dangerous sports in
the world, and every year thereare about 100, something between
100 and 150 deaths related tocave diving, not even just
normal scuba diving.
It is incredibly dangerous andI want to know why people do it.
Do you have any hypotheses?
What could possibly be soalluring about?

(11:47):
Can I describe cave diving realfast?
Sure, in case you're notfamiliar, cave diving means
strapping a scuba tank more thanone scuba tank onto you because
you need frequently.
You will be under the water foreight hours or more, so you
need sometimes four, five tanksof gas that are strapped to you.
You will be inhaling a mixtureof gases called trimix.

(12:12):
It is not just oxygen.
You need nitrogen and helium inorder to get the right mixture
of oxygen, because if you justhad straight oxygen to your body
, you would receive an effectcalled narcosis, which is
essentially like being drunk andyou are unable to make
intelligent decisions.
So you actually need to dilutethe oxygen your body receives.

Don (12:29):
You actually would get oxygen toxicity if you're
breathing in pure oxygen.
If you have too much nitrogen,you get narcosis.

Doug (12:36):
Yes, okay, Thank you so to be clear if you're underwater
for eight hours and this is atank you're also for eight hours
, and this is a tank.
You're also taking in nitrogenand helium as well.

Ron (12:47):
Eight hours straight, wow, okay yeah, and the reason why
you're down in the water.
You, uh, you might dive to thebottom of a of a cave that is in
excess of, like I don't know,500, 600, sometimes a thousand
feet deep.
Um, in some really extremecases, and to get to the bottom
of that cave it might take 10,15 minutes.
The rest of the time you areascending, because if you ascend

(13:08):
too quickly, the molecules ofgas in your tissues will expand
too quickly and give you what iscalled the bends, which is
incredibly painful and oftenresults in death.
So you need to very slowlyascend in order to dissipate
these bubbles and avoid thisvery cruel and painful fate.
You're also in complete darkness.

(13:29):
There is usually a ceilingabove you.
You cannot just swim up inorder to get out of a bad
situation.
You need to swim back the wayyou came, which means you're
usually using guidelines andfixing them into walls and
hoping you don't get tangledinto them.
There's usually silt at thebottom of these caves where, if
you disturb it even a little bit, you'll create these massive
clouds that completely disorientyou.

(13:49):
You can start to panic, whichmeans your breathing level will
increase, which means again, youare moving through the gas
supply you've brought a lotquicker and also creating that
oxidative toxicity that Donmentioned.
So you need to be incrediblycalm the entire time.
You have very little wiggleroom to panic or make the wrong
move, and if you do, you die andyour body is left at the bottom

(14:12):
of a cave for the rest of time.

Don (14:14):
So the way you're describing this, Ron, it sounds
like you think it's a bad idea.

Ron (14:20):
I?

Doug (14:21):
yes, Can I speak as the most reckless member of the
group.

Ron (14:26):
Yeah, I think yeah.
Does it sound cool to you?
Not even slightly, just youdescribing every part of this.

Doug (14:32):
I mean, my heart rate has been accelerating the entire
time.
Thinking of how many variablesof death there are.
I despise it.
Have you ever been diving?
No, no, I think.
Even the thought of scuba thatyou're talking to somebody who's
a little bit ocean averse,though in general like I think
it's beautiful, but I've neverfelt more out of my element and

(14:54):
not belonging than swimming inthe ocean.

Ron (14:56):
I think yeah and I think that's actually like um, I would
like to scuba.
I think I do actually like theocean.
This is I've been snorkeling,which I'm not trying to say.
It's like whoa crazy, this guysnorkels right, but I have
snorkeled and both times Isnorkeled I've seen a shark
which was sick and I thoughtactually pretty cool, and only
the second time it might havebeen dangerous.
It might have been a tigershark, but it was very far away.

(15:18):
Um, so I I do kind ofunderstand the allure of going
underwater, of seeing like aworld, a thing that is usually
outside of our realm ofexperience.
I think it is neat.
I have always thought the oceanis very cool.
Have you ever scuba donned?

Don (15:34):
I have.
I am a certified advanced openwater diver with nitrox training
as well, so I have someknowledge about the mixture of
gases.
I haven't done tri-mix.
That's more advanced than whatI am, but regular recreational
scoobers use nitrox, which is anincreased mixture of oxygen to

(15:54):
nitrogen, so that way you reducethe nitrogen absorption.

Doug (15:58):
Well, now I feel compelled that I have to go, because if
this is something thatfascinates you so much, I need
to get over this.

Ron (16:05):
Wait, I need to know your history of this.
I've never known this about youyeah yeah, when did you?
When'd you get certified orwhatever?

Don (16:11):
I was certified in 1997 or 8 originally.

Ron (16:16):
Yeah, so just something that I I did for fun where,
where have you been like aroundhere, yeah, so uh so, yeah, off
the coast here, Um and uh, I'veI've dived in Belize twice on
two liveaboards.

Don (16:31):
So for you, go for a week and can dive as much as you want
, like six times a day.
Um, also, uh, a little bit inthe Caribbean.

Ron (16:38):
So Are you doing reefs?
Are you doing wrecks?
What, what, what, what, whatcalls to you.

Don (16:46):
Uh, I like wrecks.
I I haven't, uh I haven'tsought out enough wrecks to uh
to say I'm a wrecked diver.
I've been on a couple, but um,but reefs mostly and yeah, super
fun all right, this is good.

Ron (16:53):
You can keep me honest with my information then, because
otherwise I might spin a lot ofbull.

Don (16:58):
Um, but never the call to cave dive, huh no, but um, my
last instructor, um, actuallywas a cave diver and a
rebreather diver, which isanother piece of equipment that
you can strap on where it's uh,uh, it's a machine, basically,
that mixes a mixture of gases,uh, immediately for your
consumption, and then capturesyour exhale and uh, and filters

(17:20):
it out.
So there's less, it's quieter,there's less bubbles and you can
stay down longer, things likethat.
But, but, uh, but no, the, the.
The thing about cave divingthat I don't like is that that
overhead, the, the fact thatyou're, you're trapped that way
and then, like you mentioned,the, the spaces that they swim
into are tight, like it's, it'snot, it's not.
Cavern diving, like, oh, it's abig giant, you know, underwater

(17:43):
cathedral, it's, it's.
Cave diving, the way likespelunking works on land where
they're squeezing through tinyspaces in order to get deep into
, um, the, the, the rockformations or the caverns, and
um, it's uh, yeah, no, I don'tlike that idea.

Ron (17:59):
So same, but some people do , some people are absolutely
crazy for it Um, and I reallykind of wanted to explore the
psychology of these people.
But I think one of the storiesthat really got me fascinated,
uh, with this hobby, I supposeum is a story of a cave diver
named uh Dave Shaw.
Um in 2004, dave Shaw uh wentto uh make a record dive.

(18:24):
Dave Shaw went to make a recorddive.
He wanted to be, he wanted toswim to the deepest freshwater
point that anyone had ever swumto using a rebreather.
This would have been like Ithink this is like the
rebreather was kind of new and alot of people were skeptical
about its abilities, but he wasa big proponent of it.
So he wanted to go to thedeepest point that anyone had
been to with a rebreather atthis time.
So he went to a?
Uh a cave called Bushman's hole,which is in South Africa.

(18:47):
Um, it is 927 feet deep.
Uh is the third deepestfreshwater hole in the world.
Um, the first person to reachthe bottom of this hole was Nuno
Gomez back in 1996.
Oh yeah, nuno, you don'tremember Nuno?

Don (19:02):
No, you don't have a poster of Nuno, no, but but just want
to clarify.
When we say that the this holeis 942 feet deep, it means it's
filled with water to the depthof 942 feet.
Or you have to go 942 feet intothe earth and there's a pool of
water.

Ron (19:17):
It's 927 feet of water, okay.
Yeah, and apparently like itwas originally it was like 840
feet deep and then Nuno, likesonar did, it was like actually
there's a way to go even deeper.
So you know, thanks, nuno, um,and this is another thing that
frequently seems to occur withthese cave divers, which is, um,
the thrill of the record, likebeing the first of, like pushing

(19:38):
yourself in some other way.
But I'd like to save that forlater.

Don (19:42):
Also I think it might be helpful to know the standard
limits of recreational divingare like 100 feet.
To go deeper than 100 feet it'sa little bit more of a risk.
The amount of time you can staydown there is really short on a
single tank just because the 30feet of water is the equivalent
of an additional atmosphere'sworth of pressure.

(20:03):
At 100 feet you're in almostadditional atmosphere's worth of
pressure.
So at at 100 feet you're inalmost four atmospheres of
pressure.
So every breath you take hasfour times as much air as it
would at the surface.
So you're breathing air fourtimes faster.
So if you're going down 900feet like that's, it's crushing
depth.
So there's a every breathyou're taking is is got huge
volumes of air in it.

Ron (20:22):
Incredibly extreme.
Right 2004, Dave Shaw isswimming to the bottom of
Bushman's Hole in order to makethis new rebreather record.
He successfully does so.
He touches the bottom.
He can only be down there for acouple of minutes because every
minute at the bottom of thishole adds approximately one hour
of ascension time, so not a lotof time to hang out and enjoy

(20:44):
the scenery.
Um, he is down there.
Um, he is about to beginascending.
When he turns to his left andhe sees a floating body in the
cave.
Um, he immediately recognizesthis body as the body of Dion
Dreyer.
Dion Dreyer was a cave diverwho died in 1994 trying to dive

(21:06):
this exact same cave.
He was 20 when he died.

Doug (21:10):
And this means that he was aware that this was the last
person who tried to get to diveinto here and he recognizes him
as he's diving.
Is that what you mean?

Ron (21:19):
He just knows that Dion is a person who has dived this cave
and he recognizes him as he'sdiving.
So you mean, uh, he just knowsthat dion is a person who has
dived this cave and he died.
So if he sees a body, heimmediately knows oh, this has
to be dion.
Um, it's been 10 years since,uh, dion has been down there,
and so he described the body asa wetsuit with a skeletonized
face that still had goggles onand the hands had been

(21:39):
skeletonized, but the rest ofthe body seemed to be more or
less intact inside a preservedin the wetsuit and he was just
sort of floating there with hisfeet, kind of submerged in the
silt at the bottom of this cave.

Doug (21:51):
So looking like the picture that you showed me.
Then the grim reaper was theretoo a little bit yes, um.

Ron (21:57):
So as uh dave shaw starts ascending, he uses a slate to
send a message to the otherdivers, because usually you are
not diving alone, you have ateam.
They will be posted atdifferent um depths above you,
uh just to kind of make sureeverything's fine and to pass
messages along in case therewere trouble or anything like
that.
And he passes a message to thefirst diver on his team, says

(22:18):
like dion's down here, um, andhe comes up, the first thing he
says is we need to get him outof there.
So it becomes Dave Shaw's kindof personal mission to return to
Bushman's Hole and retrieve thebody of Dion Dreyer so that he
can essentially return it toDion's family and his family in
measure of peace, of restitution.

(22:40):
That part confuses me too.
I, if I am dion's parents,right, I don't know if I need
that, yeah, but maybe I'm weird.
I'm not a parent.
I'm not a parent.
Uh, I don't know if I need tosee the skeletonized face of my

(23:02):
10 year old, 10 year dead son.
Am I wrong on that?

Don (23:09):
Well, I don't, I don't know , but there have been a lot of
stories of people who havemissing loved ones that are
looking just for the closure ofknowing that they've been
recovered, loved ones that arelooking just for the closure of
knowing that they've beenrecovered.
Um, there's um.
uh was just watching a TV showthe other day actually that
spoke about uh, a mine disaster,where the resolution to the

(23:32):
fire in the mine was just tobrick everybody in on the
assumption that everybody hadalready died.
And uh, and the families of themen who were bricked into the
mine suffered for 50 years untilthey passed away themselves,
knowing that their loved oneswere buried there, but they
didn't ever reclaim the bodies,get the bodies you know out so
they could have a.
So I don't know if it's so muchthat they needed to.
I wonder if it's so much thatthey needed to see, versus just

(23:56):
know that that he's beenrecovered and that you know,
he's somehow buried in a placethat they know but yeah, and I'm
sure I'm not trying to

Ron (24:05):
you know, uh, be a jerk to these people who are clearly
have suffered a lot of traumaand in grief that I hope I never
can understand.
A fraction of you know whatyou're reckless with
insensitivity and I won'tforgive you all.
Right add that to ron'sreckless chart.

Doug (24:22):
I'll take it you just went up a notch yeah so and he's he.

Don (24:26):
He found this body at the bottom of this 927 foot hole yes
, so I think that is anotherkind of um.

Ron (24:34):
My understanding this is not the depth that deon had
dived to.
Deon was an amateur cave diverat the time that he died.
Um and uh.
I believe the explanation isthat his tanks dragged him to
the bottom Cause normally, right, there would be some buoyancy
in the body, right?
Is that what you're callingattention to?

Don (24:54):
Well, a lot of things.
So his the fact that he'swearing a wetsuit.
The wetsuit is buoyant byitself, um, and so the only way
that the wetsuit would sink isthat the wetsuit is weighted
down, which, of course, diversdo wear lead weights to to
counteract that buoyancy of thatUm.
But as a body decomposesunderwater, it does fill with
gases, and so most, mostdrowning deaths, uh.

(25:16):
The body's surface within aboutthree days or so after the
gases start to fill up, however,depends upon how deep he was
when he drowned so.
so that's kind of where I'masking my question, because if
he wasn't diving super deep heshould have popped back up to
the surface, so he had to havedrowned, or he or at least made
the dive to more than about 100feet or so, because below there

(25:41):
the compression is workingagainst the buoyancy of the
wetsuit and the buoyancy of histanks would have been buoyant
too, possibly.
Most tanks are aluminum and anempty aluminum scuba tank is
buoyant.
It will float.
An empty steel tank if it weresteel, would sink.
So it depends a little bit uponwhat his equipment was like.
But as the body starts todecompose, it should fill with

(26:02):
gases and pop back up.
But also 10 years is a longtime to be under.
So so he did find him 900 feetdeep, that's, you know, it's 30
atmospheres worth of of pressure, which causes your bones to
start to dissolve.
So like, think about, like theTitanic is, you know, an even
greater depth, obviously 12,000feet, but like they've never
recovered any skeletons because,like everybody just literally

(26:24):
dissolves into the ocean.
So I'm wondering, like, how didthis body last that long in
that?

Ron (26:29):
depth.
So I do know I didn't writethis down, but I do know that
when he was diving, I believe hewas at a depth of around 300
feet, so he was below, yeah, sohe was he was going deep, he
wasn't trying to reach thebottom, he was with a partner
and um, I don't rememberprecisely what the nature of his
accident was, um, and I can'tanswer the rest of your
questions, but this is, I swear.

Don (26:51):
I swear he was at the bottom.
It's just unusual, I know, butit's just an unusual find.

Ron (26:55):
Does fresh water change anything.

Don (26:57):
It does, yeah, yeah.

Ron (26:58):
Because there's no salinity right.

Don (27:01):
And there's the buoyancy.
The buoyancy changes like it,so you're less buoyant in fresh
water than you are in salt water.

Ron (27:05):
Yeah, so back to Dave Shaw.
He begins setting out andplanning and gathering a team to
and he contacts the Dreyer'sfamily and tells them I found
your son and I would like toreturn him.
And they say, yes, please, theyare all on board with this.
Um, so he begins planning, uh,what would be the deepest body
recovery ever, right?

(27:26):
And um, there's a south africandocumentary filmmaker who joins
, uh, uh, dave, for this.
Um, he's got like old, an oldbuddy named dave shirley who's
going to kind of be his numbertwo during this recovery, and I
found a quote that I thought wasvery interesting.

(27:46):
A lot of this information, Ishould also state, I'm getting
from an article called Raisingthe Dead, which was posted in
Outsider, an online kind of webmagazine.
We'll link the article in theshow notes, I'm sure, in case
you want to read this, uh, in agood form, um and uh.

(28:08):
So one thing Dave Shaw talked to.
He was talking to a guy namedPeter Herbst, a 40 year old, a
42 year old dive instructor, um,and the owner of, like a shop
that uh, was going to be a partof this recovery.
And Peter is on record sayingto Dave I think what you're
doing for the dryers is great.
And Shaw apparently looked athim, winked and said face it,

(28:31):
we're doing this for theadventure of it.
And I think this is kind of oneof those things that I'm very
interested in is like who areadventurers?
What is adventure?
And are they jackasses?
Because I don't understand whatwe mean by the word adventure
anymore, and but I just seems tome like the age of adventure is

(28:54):
over and there's like a.
The impulse to adventure seemsto me somewhat fraught with.

Doug (29:03):
I don't know, with the exception of the final frontier.
Oh, yeah, yeah Death, there's astep in between, which is space
, but that's all right.

Don (29:12):
What do you mean?
The age of adventure is over.

Ron (29:15):
I think, when you think of age of adventure, right,
cartography, yeah, if I go inthe library and I type into the
database Age of Adventure, I'mgoing to get European discovery
of continents that aren't Europe.
Right, I'm going to get likeI'm going to get the race to the
South Pole.
I'm going to get Marco Polo.
I'm going to get everyone whocame over to North America and

(29:35):
eventually colonized and settledit Right and eventually
colonized and settled it right.
And so I think, like, in aworld where we now have GPS of
everything except for the moonand Mars and extraterrestrial
avenues of adventure, right,there's not a lot to discover.
Right, like a lot of people gotreally famous by being reckless

(29:57):
and risky and taking ondangerous journeys to go to the
South pole for the first time,even though that really didn't
mean a lot back then.
Right, like there wasn't a lotof like study going on.
I also really love polarexploration stuff and, yeah,
there'll be like, oh, we, youknow we mapped the route to the
pole.
But you look at these guys,these Amundsons and these Scots

(30:18):
and these, uh, uh, who's theother one who didn't die?
Um, anyways, seward, I don'tknow.
Um, and they're all just likegiant egomaniacs, right.
It's about the race, it's aboutgetting there first.
It's about the record again,right.
Like I want to be the the theman in the history book who
reached the South pole Right.
And then I think they find waysthat make it sound logical and

(30:38):
appealing and not insane bysaying like, oh, it's for
science, or yeah, I think thatthere's the classical definition
which is going to be like goingto foreign place, somewhere

(31:08):
that you're not necessarilycomfortable with, like that kind
of outlines it.

Doug (31:13):
But then there's also life experience in general.
That kind of becomes adventure.
So it kind of depends on howyou define it becomes adventure,
so it kind of depends on howyou define it.
But yeah, there were severalyears as a touring musician that
I felt I was very muchadventuring the things that I
hold dear about that and allwell trod territory, but yes,
very much so.

Don (31:34):
Does our imagining of adventure?
Is it connected to your openingquestion, Ron, of recklessness
or danger?
Yes, 100%.
So in order to have adventure,you have to be reckless or you
have to have danger, or both.

Ron (31:48):
There needs to be a degree of danger, I think, and you need
to be taking what seems like arisk, I think, in adventure.
I think, yes, a vacation to anew place is a bit of an
adventure, right, and Iunderstand what is cool about
that, like the new experienceputting ourselves in somewhere,
like expanding our experienceand our understanding of what
the world is like.
Oh, those are great.

(32:09):
Those are great cool thingsabout adventure.
And sometimes there's a littlebit of danger, right.
There's like I don't speak thelanguage, I might get robbed.

Doug (32:17):
I might get a bad rate on this hotel.
I don't speak Portuguese.
Instantly going to be robbed.
I don't speak.

Ron (32:26):
Portuguese Right, I mean, at least, even if these, this
sense of danger is usuallymisplaced.
I feel like we frequently feelthat right.
There's awful often a travelanxiety, I'm outside of my
comfort zone, kind of thingright.
Leaving the comfort zone is, Ithink, risk-taking to an extent.
Do we agree with that?

Doug (32:47):
That's something that now I'm feeling like I'm a cave
diver in this element.
I almost feel addicted to that.
I love the feeling of going togo somewhere completely new.
Yeah, like uh, I almostexperienced no anxiety over it
other than the excitement of,like, what is the adventure
going to be?
So, yeah, maybe this is aphilosophical question.

Don (33:08):
Well, and I wonder if it's for me to answer the question
would depend a little bit uponwhere I would be exercising that
adventure, cause some of it issimulated adventure and some of
it is simulated adventure andsome of it is actual.
You know, like um, riding arollercoaster, like there's a an
element of fear and andexcitement, but it's safe, right

(33:29):
, like you don't get on therollercoaster Like well, I hope
I make it off this time, um, butbut it's simulated.
And same thing I would say withtravel.
Like there's travel locationswhere, yeah, it's an adventure,
because I've never been therebefore, I don't know what the
customs are, I don't know whatthe locality is, but it's a
westernized, you know firstworld, relatively stable

(33:50):
political environment.
Like I know that I am safe,even though I'm going to have a
steep learning curve to to adapt, versus there are places where
your I have traveled that arenot stable in that way and and
the danger is much more realthan simulated and um, and so I
think that would alter the way II approached that a little bit,

(34:12):
but I think it's there's still.
There's still plenty ofadventure to be had, but I think
I understand what you meanabout the age of adventure, like
we know where most things areon the planet not all things,
but we know where most thingsare.
Um and uh, we're not lookingfor stuff, but but that's.
I mean, I was about to askbefore you brought it up.

(34:32):
But but so he, he dives to thebottom of this hole, he sees a
body and then he leaves it thereagain, yeah, and and now he's
going to say, okay, we're goingto go rescue that thing that I
just left down there again.
Why didn't he just bring it upwhen he, when he was there?
Why?
Why leave it in the first place?

Ron (34:48):
Well, let's talk about the plan.
So the plan involves bagging itup.
So I think the main concern isif you just bring up a, you know
you see a body and you bring itup, it's going to start to fall
apart, right?
So, you need to put it in a bodybag and you also need to tie it
to a cable, which is apparentlynot the cables that he was

(35:09):
going down there as hisguidelines.
So and and also, if you talk toI've not spoke, this is I have
not spoken to cave divers.
I have read people who havespoken to cave divers.

Doug (35:20):
And what?

Ron (35:20):
all the cave divers always say is, like you were talking
about earlier with jiu-jitsu andoutdoor nearing, is you always
have a plan right?
You are mitigating the risks byplanning and sticking to a plan
.
And it's the same with cavediving.
They always have a very tightschedule.
They know how to monitor theirlevels and when they should be,
moving at what depth, et cetera.
And how to monitor their levelsand when they should be, you

(35:42):
know moving at what depth and etcetera.
And so you don't ever want todeviate from that plan, and I
think pulling up a body youfound would be a pretty big
deviation.
He's correct not to do thatright.
So he's got to go in and nowcreate a new plan that does
involve that.

Don (35:54):
But the wink wink that you're referring to seems to
imply that his plan is lessabout providing closure for this
family and more about having asecond opportunity to make it to
the bottom of this hole.

Ron (36:06):
Yes, that is my editorial insight.
The fact that he is alsobringing a documentary team, I
think, is sort of speaks asevidence to that fact as well.
Evidence to that fact as well,I think a lot of these cave
divers like.
The reason I liken them to theage of exploration is they are
chasing that same thing that Ithink Shackleton and Scott and

(36:27):
Amundsen are trying to chase,which is like that fame, that
infamy, that look what I havedone, which others cannot do or
would not dare to do Right, andthat, to me, is not a thing I've
ever felt.
I'm not a person who seeks thatand I know there are smaller
ways perhaps in our lives wherewe can be that.
I don't know, were you guysever like chasing the high score

(36:50):
on a Pac-Man machine orsomething?
Oh yeah, big time.
So maybe I'm not showboating.

Don (36:57):
I'm not old enough to know what a Pac-Man machine is.
That's right, you are our age.
But I would even argue with that.
This seems a little bit moreswarmy to me, because going back
down to the bottom of the holehe's not going for any greater

(37:18):
purpose.
You were alluding, I think, tothe fact that the explorers
chasing the South pole um, we'redoing it more for their own
benefit than the benefit ofmankind.
But I would argue that even ifthat's true, there was a benefit
that mankind got from it, in incartography and in even in in
the skill of surviving in thattype of an extreme environment,

(37:39):
where, in this case, it doesn'tseem to me like there's any
benefit to the greater societyfor the second dive, other than
the recovery of this person fortheir family, which, not that
that's not important, but itseems like a smaller magnanimous
move, I agree.

Ron (37:57):
magnanimous move, I agree, and I think it's part of how.
I think what really fascinatesme is like, what is the
psychology of a person who onecave dives or just engages in
any of these kind of dangerous,what we might call like
exploratory behaviors, right,and, yes, oftentimes there is a
benefit to mankind.
Or, you know, someone's got tobe first right, and whoever's
got to be first has got to bepretty brave, right.

(38:20):
Be first right, and whoever'sgot to be first has got to be
pretty brave, right.
But I do think there is aphenomenon where they frequently
have to validate their decisionto do this thing which to us
does seem pointless, essentiallyright or unnecessarily reckless
right.
And they say, oh well, here'smy validation, I'm going to go
do this good thing which isreturn Dion Dreyer to his family

(38:43):
, which, yeah, good thing.
Yes, won't argue, I won't saythat's not a good thing.
I wonder if it's worth the risk.
Is the spit I'm spittingno-transcript.

Don (39:22):
And in the examples that we were tossing around first, our
rewards were, you know well,robbing a bank, right that you
were rewarded with money, or um.
But in the case of like thesetypes of adventures, the the
reward is just an adrenalinerush, isn't it?
I mean, because it's not thathe's doing something that hasn't
been done before.
He was, he was at the bottom ofthis hole already.
It's not a, it's not a newrecord to check the box for Um.
So I wonder you know cause youbring up the idea of psychology?
Can you be addicted toadrenaline?

Ron (39:47):
So I did start looking this up right, like, why do people
engage in, you know, these kindsof risky behaviors?
And, um, I figured it would beuseful to actually hear from,
like an actual divers point ofview.
So I did find this oneinterview from a, um, a cave
diver named Maria Bollerup, um,and she is writing this article,
uh, in scuba diver magazine,which, uh, you probably have a

(40:07):
couple of those done.
Um, but uh, she says, aftersome time you don't know where
your body ends or the waterbegins.
The state of mind is apassageway to a deep meditative
state.
There are extensive studies onwhat happens in the mind during
floating and I recommend youlook it up if you have a trauma,
stress, anxiety, ptsd or othermental challenges.
Trust me on this.
But floating also presents aperfect environment for

(40:28):
developing focus and calmthrough visualization techniques
.
Every time I closed in onmyself in the tank, I visualized
two predetermined criticalskills or scenarios Mentally
seeing, feeling and dealing witheach situation.
Skills or scenarios mentallyseeing, feeling and dealing with
each situation.
Breathing calmly throughouteach step, working patiently to
still and focus.
The bouncing mind.
And I think this answers for me,like she's describing this,

(40:51):
this feeling of floating, asbeing a sort of meditative act,
and she says it's like acurative for anxiety and stress.
And I did manage to find adissertation by someone who was
studying this kind of thingwhich is like yeah, why do
people?
do this.
This is dumb, and there is ahigher propensity of divers who

(41:12):
do have issues with anxiety.
It is not just an adrenalinething they're like.
Frequently they have some sortof problem with anxiety.
This is a quote I found.
The practice of high-risk sportmay be a means of anxiety
regulation, allowing some peopleto experience an emotional
benefit that they do notexperience elsewhere, and there

(41:32):
was a study conducted onskydivers which saying skydivers
who had issues with anxiety.
They experienced none of itwhile they were skydiving and
frequently it would alleviatethe symptoms of anxiety for up
to an hour or two after theskydive.
However, it was not a curativeto it.

Don (41:49):
Uh, in the long term, so and I'm pretty sure, if, if I'm
in the airplane and and you openthe door, like that's the
moment of anxiety for me, Idon't think that's going to
erase that for me.

Ron (41:59):
The, um, the, the person that you're quoting, uh, the
lady you're quoting originally,um, the quote said that that
she's floating in the tank yeah,she was talking about
practicing um in this,particularly since she's like
how do I practice for a cavedive, and she said she goes into
a tank um which uh, createslike a, a neutral buoyancy tank

(42:20):
type thing, where so like afloat therapy tank.
Yeah, okay, yeah, um, um.

Don (42:25):
But she said that is the, the way to imitate, or like the
closest way to get it, um, whenshe's not actually on the dive,
but she's not talking aboutfloating while you're diving,
because, because what she'sdescribing there like that
sounds like narcosis, like thatsounds like um, that
disassociation from your body isnot a is not a thing you want
to happen when you're 300 feetunderneath the surface of the

(42:46):
water.

Ron (42:46):
But I think it partly helped me understand, like
another part, why I'm afraid ofall this and I don't understand
why anyone would do it is thatit's not so much the descent but
the the ascent, where you arespending hours at a time eight
hours, in a dark cave with adinky flashlight, trying to
breathe correctly, so you don'tdie like I don't.
I don't know if I could bealone with myself for an hour,

(43:11):
let alone in in the womb of theearth, you know like.
So what do you do?
What happens in the brain there?
Right, and and according to alot of what I read, it's nothing
like in their head.
They just focus on the task.
I'm breathing, yeah.
Like so I don't again.

Doug (43:28):
I don't understand the appeal Maybe that is partially
where the meditation comes fromis because if you are focused on
breathing, like every singlemeditation technique it seems
that I'm not going to don'tquote me on that, but it seems
like all of the meditationtechniques I've ever studied are
always focused on breath.
So I wonder if that's a part ofit as well as because you are
focused on breathing that itwould be there, and I also

(43:50):
imagine there would be almostlike a superhuman quality to it,
where it's like I am existingin, where this would only be
natural for fish and me as aland mammal, I'm able to conquer
this in a sense, Because Ithink that that maybe is a big
part of it is the idea of howyou're able to conquer something
potentially.

Ron (44:11):
There's a quote that I kept seeing coming up, which is a
lot of cave divers will be.
Like you know, more people havebeen on the moon than have dove
to the depths that wefrequently do.
Right, there's a kind of likespecial club of like yeah
essentially a dozen people whohave given a dove in dove dived,
dived to depths in excess oflike 500 feet, right.

(44:33):
So it is a kind of a badge ofhonor, right.

Doug (44:37):
Doven kind of sounds beautiful Doven, I think that's
like.

Ron (44:39):
Edwardian English kind of sounds beautiful, dovin, I think
that's like edwardian english.
It sounds beautiful to me.
Um.
So, uh, the team is ready.
Uh, in january, uh, 8th 2005,that's when they convene at
bushman's hole to recover dion.
Um shaw is going to be the onewho goes in, uh, dion's family,

(45:01):
uh, his, his parents even arriveto to witness the, uh, you know
, the recovery efforts.
Um shaw goes in first, hereaches the bottom in about 11
minutes.
He's got a body bag with himthis time, uh, and he gets to
work trying to recover dion'sbody.
The second person in the wateris Don Shirley, dave's close
friend and another experienceddiver.

(45:22):
He's kind of just, you know, Ithink, sitting at a depth of I
don't know, 800 feet maybe or so, just to kind of watch and make
sure that everything's ready.
Don recalls that as soon as hegot in the water and started
diving down and eventually couldsee Dave's light at the bottom
of the cave, he realizedsomething was wrong because the

(45:42):
light was not moving.
So it turns out that he had aquick moment to decide whether
or not he should return to thesurface and say something is up
or try and go deeper to see ifhe could possibly help.
At this time, I believe Davehad already been on the surface
or the bottom of the cave forabout four minutes or so.

(46:06):
He decides to go down and helphis friend.
When he does, he shatters his.
What would you call this, don?
He's got like a wristwatch thattells him his it's a dive
computer, dive computer.
Yeah, the pressure breaks hisdive computer and so he has to
manually start to regulate hisbreathing and his gas mixture,

(46:26):
um.
But he does manage to make itto the bottom, um, and he sees
that, uh, dave has also, uh,drowned.
Um, he is not sure why, butDave is sort of floating there
at the top of the cave.
So he begins ascending.
He meets the next diver up.
Eventually, he passes him aslate that says Dave is not

(46:48):
coming up.
And now essentially becomes arescue effort for Don Shirley,
because he's not doing greateither.
They do eventually successfullyreturn Don to the surface.
Um, he does suffer uh, like hedoes have.
He does uh have the symptoms ofthe bends at some point and he
spends months kind ofrehabilitating himself, going

(47:10):
into therapy tanks in order touh depressurize the bubbles of
the gases in his tissues.
But he does eventually recoverUm, but he does have a kind of
lifelong equilibrium problemsand things like that.
Um.
So um does eventually recoverUm, but he does have a kind of
lifelong equilibrium problemsand things like that.

Doug (47:22):
Um so, um, does that clarify and you might be getting
to this why, um, uh, dave, davewas our central, why he died?

Ron (47:33):
Why did he drown?
So Dave did have a cameraattached to his uh diving helmet
.
Uh, when he uh went down, hewent down and three days later
Dave's body and Dion's body doreturn to the surface yeah, the
thing is both of them.

(47:54):
Dave had managed to tie Dion toa cable and as they started
pulling it up, it had dislodgedthem and they were both tied
together.
And once, of course, bothbodies arrived, they have a
camera and of course the firstthing they do is turn it on to
see what happened.
Essentially, what happened isDave got to the bottom of the

(48:16):
cave and he.
They had multiple scenarios onhow the body retrieval would
work, but apparently in all ofthem they assumed Dion's body
would be lodged to the silt atthe bottom of the cave.
This turned out actually not tobe true.
As soon as he began trying tobag him, he immediately became
dislodged and started floatingup, and so none of the scenarios

(48:37):
were like well, how do Iactually bag a floating body?
That's going to result in muchmore exertion on my part.
So instead of returning up andcanceling the dive, as his
friends say he should have, davetries to do it anyways and he
is trying to manipulate afloating body.
The tissue is essentially doyou know the name of the?
Actual, but like the tissue isdissolved to a consistency of

(48:59):
soap, so it's like a moreSaponification.
Thank you very much.
And uh, according to the camera,like as you're watching this in
the film, apparently, um, thecable from his light starts to
get intertwined around the bodybag and himself.
This becomes a giant issueagain, because you cannot

(49:21):
control your light source.
He is struggling to do bothmanipulate a body and control
his light.
He's becoming tangled in it.
He's digging up silt the wholetime.
It just kind of escalates fromthere.
His breathing starts becomingirregular.
He is not maintaining thebreath schedule that he's
supposed to and, uh, eventuallyhe um, essentially passes out
from carbon dioxide and thendrowns.
Is the official diagnosis,prognosis, which is which cause

(49:46):
of death?
God thanks?
Um, I really don't like that,yeah, it's terrible.
um, obviously, this likeshatters um dryer's parents.
Um, dave has a wife.
He has two adult children thathe leaves behind.
There's a, you know, thearticle describes how their

(50:11):
minister tries to deliver thenews to his wife in Australia
and she's like, they're like,trying to be hopeful.
She's like, oh, you know he'sbeen down for five hours but you
know there's still chance.
And she's just like, no, thereisn't.
I know what we've signed up for, um kind of thing.
And so, uh, yeah, but uh, thekind of silver lining that
everyone draws from this is thathe did technically succeed in
the mission.
The body of Dion Dreyer wasreturned, um, and it was

(50:33):
eventually, uh, you know, givento the family and they had it
interred and they found theirpeace.
They did describe that being a,you know a, being a thing that
was of value to them and thathelped ease their suffering.
So again, I don't want to makelight of the tragedy of the
situation, but I still find thisjust a very odd thing for a

(50:58):
person to do and for a person toattempt.
And again, it draws me to thepsychology right, where it's
like especially when you have afamily and you're going to
engage in reckless behavior forthe sake of exploration, for the
sake of infamy, for the sake ofthe record.
It's just not something Iunderstand.

(51:20):
I don't understand it.
That's all I got to say.
I don't understand it.
It's just not something Iunderstand.
I don't understand it.
That's all I got to say I don'tunderstand it.

Don (51:26):
You mentioned it a little while ago that there's a swagger
among the cave divers of howfew they are, and they make this
comparison to the men who'vewalked on the moon.
But that's actually where mymind goes with this is because
that, like, I will dive in theocean.

(51:46):
I've got no problem with thatUm, but the idea of like
launching me at hundreds ofthousands of miles an hour
towards a tiny rock that'scircling the planet, and if we
miss, like I, there's nostopping, like you just keep
going forever, um, that freaksme out.
And but it's that.
I think it's that samepsychology.
But again, like, I'm superthankful that those men that

(52:09):
that were involved in and thewomen that were involved in the
um, the, the space program, didthose things.
I'm glad that somebody signedup for that, because I can make
popcorn in the microwave becauseof it.
right, like it's a lot a lot ofbenefits to society as a whole
came out of that, because theyhad that psychology.
So so, yeah, it's not somethingthat that I possess, but I'm
thankful that other people do.

(52:31):
In the case of the, this diverthough I'm, I'm I'm struggling
with it more because it doesn'tseem to be, as you know, for all
mankind type of a, of a choice.

Ron (52:45):
Yeah, I do feel like there are certain challenges or
discoveries that, like they,they pass a threshold of not
actually being purposeful, rightlike like we're going into the
least inhabitable places of theearth for our species and I, and
I suppose they would say like,exactly right, like how, how
freaking cool is that?

Doug (53:05):
like right.

Ron (53:06):
I I've pushed the limits of the human body right and
achieve something that wasthought impossible, and I guess
I'm just not impressed by that.
Like I feel like there arespaces we're just not allowed in
and that's perfectly fine, youknow.
Like I don't need to know howdeep bushman's hole is or if a
person was down there.
It doesn't fill me with wonder.
Maybe I'm a cynic, though Idon't.
Maybe there's a boy in southafrica who's like man, that's

(53:27):
sick.
That guy went down there.
I don't know.
Is that what?
Are we doing it for the kids?

Don (53:34):
there's definitely kids don't do this, by the way.

Ron (53:37):
Psa for listeners yeah, don't cave, dive, you will die.
Um, I, I found so, like, Ifound some.
I like okay, the big thing forme is like, as I'm reading this
story, I'm thinking about myself, which is something I do all
the time, and I'm thinking likeI couldn't do that.
Did you feel like you used tobe more adventurous or reckless,

(53:58):
say like I don't know yourteens, your 20s, like were there
certain adventures or risks?
You found like I don't knowyour teens, your twenties, like,
where there's certainadventures or risks.
You found like easier to take,and this is a tired narrative.
But as you grow older, you'relike, oh, screw it.
Like what's the point?

Doug (54:12):
I have.

Ron (54:12):
I have crossed that point now where I feel like I will not
do certain things Cause it'slike I'm married, I'm happy, I
have a stable job for the firsttime ever.
Like I'm like, I'm good.
I don't even want to like go inthe desert because I'm like
what if I lose my water?

Doug (54:27):
It's not worth it.
What I find weird is, I thinkthrough getting married, stable
job, those types of things, Ifeel like it's increased my
interest in some of these thingsbecause there is the element of
, okay, we know this is going tobe like kind of day in, day out

(54:47):
, so I get more interested insome of it.
Now that, granted, when you saycave diving uh, cave diving not
at all, I had no interest inthat whatsoever, but there are
other ones that I go.
I probably wouldn't have donethat in my twenties because I
would have been busy with this,but yeah, I'd try that now.
I don't know.

Don (55:04):
And I feel so as the, the wizened, uh uh Pac-Man
remembering elder Exactly, thankyou.
Um, I played a lot of Pac-Man.
For the record, what I'm thisis Pac-Man.
I think I would have to think alot harder about about, a lot

(55:24):
harder about, about what you'reasking, but I, my, my initial
response is the no, I don't feelless inclined to want to take a
risk, but my body feels lessinclined to be able to survive
it or enjoy it.
Yeah, like I get tired morequickly.
I I takes longer to recoverfrom things that I I do.
Like it's.
That's the.
That's what sucks about gettingolder.
Is that the I don't think thedesire changes, but the the

(55:47):
ability certainly starts to flag.

Doug (55:49):
So I think that might be my driving energy in some of
those pursuits.
As interesting as that is, isbeing afraid of if I don't keep
doing this, what if I can't?
Yeah, Maybe that's it.
I hadn't thought about that,but that's a great point.
What's?

Don (56:07):
the what's the riskiest thing you're willing to do now
that you have never done.
So like if, if we were going topool our, our collective funds
and we were all going to fund arisky adventure for each of us,
what would be your riskyadventure that you'd not done
before?

Doug (56:22):
done oh wow, this is going to be very, very difficult to
come up with on the spot I canopen the bank account today.

Ron (56:30):
We can start saving money for this, yeah wow, what would
it be?

Doug (56:34):
um, I'm gonna need a moment to think, because
adventure I'm instantly justthinking somewhere else, right
off the bat.
So money and time are no object, no object.
I, I would be fascinated tojust stop the clock for a moment

(56:56):
, immediately go to Japan andthen just like, see what happens
Join the Yakuza.
I don't think they'd have me,but just like, see what happens
Join the Yakuza, yeah, I don'tthink they'd have me.
But, um, yeah, knowing, knowingthat I probably would be
watching sumo a lot, I can seemyself rubbing shoulders with a

(57:16):
few of them.
Um, but, yeah, like, uh, thethought of going to Japan, just
starting and seeing how long Icould be there, and then like
where that would lead, like,would that lead to a job?
Would I end up doing it?
Like, how much language would Iacquire?
That would be fascinating to me, but I think it would terrify
my wife, so I don't think it'dbe a very long lived.

Don (57:36):
So your your risky behavior is just existing in Japan.

Doug (57:41):
Seeing, not making too, it doesn't sound that risky.
One is going without, without aprep, yeah, and just seeing.
Let's see where this goes like.
Am I gonna end up in thecountryside, do I?

Ron (57:55):
what you want is like complete carte blanche right,
you're just like.
What if I started zero in aplace again?
How far can I get?

Doug (58:00):
to me that's a giant adventure.
I think that that's the mostexciting kind of adventure.
I I embrace the chaos of let'sjust see what happens.
I love that when I was touring,there was a night that we only
had one night in Paris.
When we were there and I knewthat we were going to need to
leave the next day, so I endedup just staying up all night and

(58:21):
I just started walking.
I dropped a pin on my phone Ididn't have GPS on it at the
time because I didn't even haveenough money to have
international uh service on myphone, so I could just drop a
pin and then walk back to it,essentially, and I just stayed
out all night.
I ended up running into mykeyboard player like three hours
later he had done the exactsame thing and then we went to a

(58:48):
whole bunch of different placesand I just explored, kind of
aimlessly and still, one of themost memorable evenings of my
entire life, just meetingdifferent people.
And yeah, it sounds instantlylike it's debaucherous and it
wasn't at all.
It was really just nice beingable to go to different
restaurants and bars and meetingpeople, but I really enjoyed it
.

Ron (59:04):
And I think what you're saying actually taps a little
bit into one of my theories ofwhy this is actually an
attractive sport for certainpeople.
So I was thinking like, okay,what kind of people cave dive
right?

Don (59:12):
And I was able to find some statistics and if you had to
guess, are there anycommonalities in most cave
divers, like nationality income,social class, I would say the
income has to be in the upperlevels just because the
equipment is so expensive, plusthe privilege of being able to
take that risk and know thatyour family is not a threat

(59:36):
because you're not coming home.
That has to be wealthier.

Ron (59:41):
Yeah, starting out, equipment is like 30 grand.
You got to drop that up frontright.
So it's like most of them, uhlike 40 of them, make more than
100k a year, like it didn't getmore specific than that, which I
thought was a little misleading.
So, um, almost like 98 of themare white.
Uh, they all live in either, uh, north america, uh, like mexico

(01:00:02):
, australia, um, and southafrica, mostly because these are
the places where the holes areat.
They're North America, likeMexico, australia and South
Africa, mostly because these arethe places where the holes are
at.
I found some interesting quotes.
This is from a dissertation byWilliam Oygarden.
Many cave divers have similarlifestyles.
They choose to live near thecave diving sites, either in
Florida, georgia, missouri,australia.
The Bahamas are in the northernpart of the Yucatan Peninsula.

(01:00:22):
Once hooked, many cave diverswill move their entire families
to one of these locations.
The areas where the caves arelocated are either remote or
rural.
Jobs are typically not highpaying in these areas, unless
the family's lifestyle islimited by the local economy.
Since the risk of cave diving isso great and the sensation or
experience is so thrilling, theday-to-day interactions of the
cave diver begins to change.
Many cave divers become moredirect and almost overbearing to

(01:00:45):
others who do not see thingstheir way.
Unfortunately, this behavioreven affects members of the cave
diver's own family.
Historically, cave divers havehad multiple marriages or
relationships or choose to staysingle after multiple attempts
at failed relationships, and Ithink there's a that part I can
kind of understand where it'slike.
Cave diving is an escape fromlike what we might call like the

(01:01:08):
banality or like repetition ofof life that reaches a certain
tempo, right like when you havethe job, when you are married,
right like I understand.
I was talking to a friend theother day and you know he was
telling me like yep, I've got myschedule you know, like I
hadn't talked to him a long time.
He's like I get.
He recently had a kid and hewas essentially.

(01:01:29):
I could hear the sorrow in hisvoice.
He was like my my day is veryplanned, it does not deviate.
One day blends into the otherRight and um, I understand, like
the cave dive, is thatreclaiming you know something
new, something novel, somethingexciting, something to live for,
If you don't find thatlifestyle enough joy in it or

(01:01:52):
peace or whatever, I think Ijust am a guy who is made for
that lifestyle, though Like I'mlike what are you talking about?
Like that's fine.
I'm happy to like make dinnerevery night.

Doug (01:02:02):
Can I counter and ask a question?
I'm curious where this leads,Because I know that you enjoy
video games when you're playingsomething.
We'll take Skyrim as an example.
Do you have many hours loggedin Skyrim?

Ron (01:02:16):
No, but I have a lot of hours in other games.

Doug (01:02:19):
I don't get addicted to stuff a lot.

Ron (01:02:20):
Is that where you're leading?

Doug (01:02:22):
No, I'm looking for, like an open world RPG, a game that
simulates the sense of adventureor discovery or something like
that.
Yes, yeah, that for me is.

Ron (01:02:31):
Euro truck simulator too, I discover a digital version of
Europe.
Is it open world?
Yeah, I mean you're on roads,but you can go.
I could go from vienna tobudapest in one of seven ways,
like there you go.

Doug (01:02:48):
Fair enough, I just was interested, so like with uh, I
know you're at least familiarwith skyrim.
In that context, um, do youfind yourself as a guy who's
like you're looking for the mainquest, but you'll take a side
quest as it goes along?

Ron (01:03:04):
Oh, yeah, yeah, a hundred percent, yeah, yeah, I'll always
take the side quest over themain quest.

Doug (01:03:08):
So I I think just based on that alone.
I think it's just riskperception that gives you that
feeling, because you strike meas the type of person that would
rather take the side route andsee what would happen.
I've never finished any like.
Anytime that I get an openworld game, I never finish it
because I'm always taking theside pass.
I've like, oh, I just spent thepast 30 hours hunting in the

(01:03:29):
game instead of doing what I wassupposed to be doing.
So I I wonder if it's theperception of what could
potentially happen versus the oh, I agree a hundred percent.

Ron (01:03:39):
Yeah, I like.
I evaluate the risks.
I'm like, if there's any, I'mnot.
I evaluate the risks.
I'm like if there's any, Idon't care, I'm not going to, I
don't want to, I'm a very riskaverse guy.
I think Well, as we in fieldsright.
Sure that result in pain orlosses Dignity.
I don't know, maybe not eventhat I'll risk dignity.
I got that in spades.

Don (01:04:03):
I'm wondering about the uh like.
I feel like you buried the leadhere a little bit Cause finding
out at the at the very end thatthese guys have multiple
relationships like.
I'm wondering cause there's thelike.
A relationship involvesobviously more than one person,
so is that because of their ownpsychology that they are are
averse from, from a commitment,or is it that the, the, the

(01:04:27):
people that they are arecommitting their relationships
to, can't stand the uncertaintyof the risky behavior?
that their partner is engagingin.
So yeah, I would.
I would be curious which youknow.
What's the source of themultiple relationships there?

Ron (01:04:40):
So, um, yeah, the the this dissertation I wound up reading
was mostly focused actually onthe relationships cave divers
have with their family, and soit surveyed a bunch of cave
divers was the kind ofmethodology it utilized, and all
of them were married or inlong-term relationships and it
was basically talking about,like, how frequently they do
have unsatisfactoryrelationships.

(01:05:01):
I also found like thisinteresting anecdote which says
applying this to cave divers, asrelational distress increases
the stronger need for relief orescape and the stronger need for
increased participation in highrisk activity.
As a fellow cave diverreflected quote I think that
cave diving enabled me to dealwith the stress of the
relationship for a while until,ultimately, I needed to escape

(01:05:23):
the duress Right, and so itwould.
I think it goes a little bitboth ways here.
I think to your question, don,which is like these are both
people who are probably notsuper cut out for what we would
consider a traditional Western,uh, married lifestyle, right, um
, and.
And frequently, yes, it createsduress for the family, because
every weekend these guys aregoing out to a cave where they

(01:05:45):
could shake hands with the GrimReaper.
And you know that's notprobably a hobby Like I couldn't
personally do that to peoplewho love me, like I need my
hobbies to be less, put themthrough, less of a ringer.
But I also find it fascinatingthat, according to this guy, he
would rather die in a submergedcave than just talk to his wife
about what's wrong with theirrelationship Right like as the

(01:06:07):
duress of this relationshipbecomes compounding.
I'd rather just go into the anusof the earth and see what I'm
like, which made me I had to godown this route.
Also, is this a men thing?
There are female cave divers,obviously, but, like, most of
them are men.

(01:06:27):
Like, what is it about the malepsyche?
That also is like I'm going togo do the dangerous thing and be
the first number one baby.

Don (01:06:39):
Like well, the, the way you described the uh that, uh, the
divers um understanding of how arelationship works, like it
just sounds very.
I was going to say sophomoric,but that might sound a little
bit more pejorative than I wantto, but like it's the teenager,
like this relationship issuffocating me because we've
been together for three weeksright.

(01:07:00):
There's that need to escape fromanything.
And right, yeah, yeah, um, thatthere's that need to escape
from anything and and it's afunny, it's a funny term to
escape, because thinking of cavediving to me is not about
escape, that's about yeah,moving into an even tighter
location where there is noescape, right?

Ron (01:07:15):
um, in order to escape from your escape it's the same with
the skydiving right that wasbeing measured like.
Like they felt less anxietywhen they are technically in a
place where they have fewerdecisions and fewer freedom to
much more probability of deathyes, exactly right, um, so um,
there was another kind of thinghere.
A lot of these kinds of peoplehave been linked to, uh,
alexithymia, which is theinability to recognize and

(01:07:37):
describe one's emotions, and solike there's a lot
psychologically, I think, goingon with these kinds of people.
They, they need that highadrenaline hit of something you
know what gives me theadrenaline hit yeah is talking
with you guys about all this.
Oh my god, don you're gonnamake me cry by the next time
that we talk around.

Doug (01:07:57):
I want to hear about what uh risk adventure no I I think
that we need to set up anadventure for you.
This has really brought it out.

Ron (01:08:04):
This was really what I wanted.
I wanted this was my cavediving cry for help.
This was me telling you guysthat I'm actually in a doldrum
of the soul and I do require tobe shook free of it.

Don (01:08:16):
Just want to get out of here.

Ron (01:08:23):
Thank you all for being here today.
Uh, I hope we had anopportunity to, to, to explore
our own psyches.
I hope the listener had anopportunity to explore their
psyche.
Uh, if there are any cavedivers out there, don't talk to
me.
I don't want to know I want tosit far away from you and talk
to pontificate on what is goingwrong with you.

(01:08:43):
I don't actually care, and wehope to see you all next time on
the uncannery, where we willpop open another thick can of
delicious thought provokingstuff.
There we go.