Whilst not necessarily the deepest dive, the Ultimate dive for explorer, Artic Diver and BBC presenter, Paul Rose, is the Black Hole at Andros in the Bahamas.
Already known for Dean’s Blue Hole, on Long Island, which is the deepest Blue Hole in the world, the main island of Andros is home to the greatest concentration of blue holes in the world, at 178!
However, the Black Hole is inland, next to Twin Lakes in the centre of the island.
The subject of a BBC documentary for the series, Oceans, it was one of the weirdest dives the team undertook! One Paul said he is not in a rush to repeat!
“Starting the dive, because it’s inland fresh water, the first section is the usual green water that we expect. Then, at about 18m at what looks like the bottom, there’s a layer of brown dense stuff that goes through to black. As you go through this layer, all of a sudden you can smell rotten eggs, which is weird, because you can’t smell underwater!!
It seems that the chemical makeup permeates your skin and fills your sinuses with the smell. Most uncomfortable!
Then, about 1m further down, there’s bright purple pink reflecting off your torch, which hangs in long tentacles and layers. And suddenly the water feels hot, about 36 or 37C; an uncomfortable hot and then you come out into black, clear, cool water underneath.
Tooni said she could feel her hair burning and when we got back to the surface, all my hair had turned bright gold!
The chemicals in the water included Hydrogen Sulphide which turned all the metal on our equipment black and I had to have it all serviced after that!”
See Paul’s interview, at; http://www.bbc.co.uk/oceans/ultdives/
To learn more about the formation of Black Holes, see Stephanie Schwabe’s article, at; http://www.licor.com/env/newsline/2011/03/1905/
Here’s an excerpt:
‘Analysis of our purple samples revealed that we had discovered a novel species of bacteria. In October 2003 it was officially named Allocromatium palmeri after my late husband, Robert John Palmer. ‘
In this article, she found the bottom of the Black Hole to be 140ft (47m) with a further 3 feet of ‘sludge’ at the bottom.
See the first exploration video at; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV_lyGFyLU0
Remember, in Blue or Black Holes, or in open water, BSAFU !
Mark
editor@thedivingmagazine.com
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