World Cave Diving Record Back in South African Hands!

Karen van den Oever

The world record for the deepest cave dive by a woman is back in South African hands!
On October 25th, 2004 Verna van Schaik set the world record in South Africa’s Boesmansgat Cave, reputedly the 3rd deepest freshwater cave in the world, by diving to a depth of 221m!
Van Schaik’s record was eventually bettered, but on March 26th, 2021, South African diver Karen van den Oever, descended to a depth of 236.04m in the same Boesmansgat, to regain the record for South Africa!
Boesmansgat is at an altitude of 1,550m above sea level, so Van den Oever’s record-breaking dive was equivalent to a depth of 238m at sea level.

Nuno Gomes

Nuno Gomes was born in Portugal, but his family relocated to Pretoria in South Africa when he was 14 years of age.
Gomes became interested in scuba diving. But because Johannesburg was so far from the coast, much of his diving was done inland.
In 1996, Gomes reached a depth of 286.2m in Boesmansgat cave in the Northern Cape. Due to the cave’s altitude 1,550m above sea level, this equated to a depth of 337m, and is still certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the deepest scuba dive achieved in the world.
Gomes also held the world record for the deepest ocean dive (318.25m) achieved at Dahab in the Red Sea in 2005.
This record was only broken in 2014 with a descent to 332.35m by Ahmed Gabr, also at Dahab in the Red Sea.

Verna van Schaik

On October 25th, 2004, Verna van Schaik dived to a depth of 221m in the Boesmansgat cave in South Africa’s Northern Cape, thereby setting a world record for the deepest dive by a woman diver. Van Schaik was already the world record holder for the deepest cave dive and the deepest dive at altitude.
The entire dive took 5 hours and 34 minutes to complete, of which the descent took only 12 minutes, but with all the required decompression stops the ascent took 5 hours and 22 minutes.
This dive set a number of woman’s scuba dive records, deepest cave dive (221m) as well as the deepest scuba dive at altitude (1,550m) and was also an African record.
htps://divingalmanac.com/deepest-dive-scuba-freshwater-women/

Verna van Schaik is the author of Find Your Dare — Create Anything.