A Deeper Understanding

Fear comes from not understanding. It’s a phrase that I repeat to myself when I am presented with something that scares me. 

If you’re afraid of swimming with sharks, it’s probably because you don’t understand them. If you’re afraid of hiking alone through the wilderness, it’s probably because you don’t understand that environment. In adventure sports, it often means you simply haven’t developed the skills and awareness necessary to visualise the path to a positive outcome.

Most people’s perception of cave diving would put it at the very top of the list of dangerous sports. I was first asked to learn to cave dive for an upcoming film project and I shut the idea down outright.

Generally, I gravitate towards experiences that seem ‘off limits’ to most – experiences that require unique skills, fear management and time dedicated to understanding your environment – cave diving felt like rolling the dice. I’ve spent most of my life open water diving in the ocean and freediving. I consider myself something of an expert on being underwater, but I trust statistics. And the statistics around cave diving didn’t look good.

My preconception was very much based on fear, and I knew it. So eventually I agreed to, at the very least, go through the training. If I didn’t like it, I’d pull the plug.

A few months later, I found myself sitting in the back room of ProTec diving centre in Tulum, Mexico. Opposite me, a tall, muscular, tattooed man with a clean-shaven scalp. On first appearances, Kim Davidsson struck me more as a bouncer than a diver, at least until his sense of humour broke loose. As Kim gave me a breakdown of his experience as a cave diver, explorer and instructor, it quickly became apparent that I’d stumbled into the classroom of one of the most accomplished and capable instructors in the world.

Day one, a lesson in statistics: The majority of cave diving accidents don’t happen to cave divers. Open water divers like me, curious about what’s just inside the cave entrance, can’t resist. They kick up silt, lose their sense of direction and panic. Floating, suspended in total darkness, it’s almost impossible to reorientate yourself. Up and down become ambiguous, and without any training in how to handle the situation, your chances of self-rescue are slim. 

When a trained cave diver has an accident it’s usually the result of a navigational error, a wrong turn, swimming deeper into the cave beyond the limits of your air supply. In a cave, of course, you can’t just swim to the surface.

Over the following month, Kim dismantled my concept of my own capabilities as a diver, refining my skills and systems with an attention to detail that made me feel like I was ready to be an astronaut. Kim taught me to navigate blindfolded, to break down and reassemble my equipment underwater and to constantly recalculate my gas supply whilst moving through complex environments. I can now swim backwards using just my toes, so I can back out of tight spaces without disturbing silt on the cave floor.