Diving into Darkness: A True Story of Death and Survival (Hardcover)

by Phillip Finch (Author)
Key Phrases: bailout tanks, setup dive, buoyancy wings, Hong Kong, Don Shirley, South Africa (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this gripping account, Finch (F2F) narrates a disastrous attempt to recover a body nearly 900 feet underwater in a South African crater named Bushman's Hole. David Shaw, an Australian pilot for Cathay Pacific, became obsessed with diving in his early 40s and quickly became a world-class deep diver. In South Africa, Shaw trained with renowned diving instructor Don Shirley, and the two men grew close. Shirley was a proponent of diving rebreathers, sophisticated pieces of equipment that allow divers to reach greater depths while using less equipment. In 2004, Shaw dove to the bottom of Bushman's Hole, where he discovered the corpse of a diver that had lain there for a decade. Together, Shaw and Shirley decided to try to raise the body. Finch seamlessly weaves together the various strands of his story, from the character biographies to the dangers and arcane technologies of deep diving. An experienced cave diver himself, Finch brings the reader into a strange and hermetic underworld that few have ever experienced firsthand. In deep diving, he demonstrates, even the smallest breakdown in judgment or equipment will bring catastrophe. Although the outcome is never in doubt, Finch manages to build suspense to fevered intensity. (Oct.)
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From Booklist
In January 2005, extreme diver David Shaw entered Bushman’s Hole, a watery crater in the Kalahari Desert. Easing himself through a narrow fissure, he aimed himself at the bottom of the crater, roughly 900 feet below him. Soon after, his diving partner, Don Shirley, followed Shaw down. In less than an hour, one of the men was dead, and the other faced a harrowing 10-hour decompression, during which he scrambled for every breath. This is a dramatic and emotional story, vividly told by journalist and diver Finch (who really makes us feel what it must have been like, spending 10 hours wondering if he would run out of air before he made it to safety). The author explores not just the episode he’s writing about, but also the sport of diving: its factions, its superstars, its history. A solid addition to the sport-diving genre. --David Pitt

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (September 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312383940
• ISBN-13: 978-0312383947
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #208,346 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The spellbinding story and background of a tragic deep-diving body recovery attempt, October 9, 2008

By	Conrad H. Blickenstorfer (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Diving into Darkness is the story behind the fatal body recovery attempt conducted by the Australian diver David Shaw at Boesmansgat, or Bushman's Hole, in South Africa in January of 2005. This is a thriller, but one where we know the ending. David Shaw died at the almost incredible depth of around 900 feet while trying to recover the body of Deion Dreyer, a young diver who had perished in the massive sinkhole a decade earlier. The mission, which Shaw attempted with Don Shirley as his primary support diver, is well documented and you can see the video Shaw took during his last dive on YouTube.

Author Phillip Finch neither knew Shaw nor was he part of the well-publicized expedition, but the Kansas-based journalist, who is a cave diver himself, managed to create a spell-binding, riveting account of how David's Shaw's passion for extreme diving led to an almost inevitable conclusion.

Unlike most in the small community of extreme divers, David Shaw did not have thousands of dives and decades of experience under his belt when he attempted the complex recovery at near record depth. He was a commercial pilot with Cathay Pacific Airlines who had started in crop duster and charter planes and then worked his way up to ever more complex machinery. It wasn't until 1999, at age 45, that Shaw took up scuba, but once he did, he progressed to Nitrox, decompression dives, wreck diving, cave diving, trimix and rebreather certifications at near record speed.

Rebreather training got him in contact with Don Shirley, an widely renowned instructor and "rebreather evangelist" in South Africa. The book examines the relationship between the laid back and easy going Shirley and the goal-oriented, methodical and driven Shaw whose experience as an airliner captain allowed him to efficiently absorb vast amounts of technical knowledge and calmly follow complex procedures under the most trying circumstances.

Finch relates Shaw's rapid progression from novice diver to descending to the bottom of Boesmansgat, a sinkhole whose bottom at 900+ feet had caused problems to such diving legends as Sheck Exley and Nuno Gomes. Both had survived their own attempts, but not without problems. And none had gone as deep as David Shaw on a rebreather, a complex and at times finicky apparatus that recycles breathing gasses with the help of sensors, computers, and chemistry. When he finds the body of Deion Dreyer, he attempts a recovery on the spot, but the body is stuck and Shaw decides to return for it on another dive.

The book introduces Shaw's wife of 30 years who accepts her husband's dangerous passions but is not part of it. We also get to know friends and fellow divers, and the parents of the dead diver whose body Shaw wants to recover in what ends up becoming a well publicized media event. Don Shirley takes an increasingly important role and finally a central one when he gets in near fatal trouble himself while working his way up from the depths of the massive sinkhole.

The risks Shaw engaged in were considerable. "A career of 333 dives from the deep end of a swimming pool to an attempted body recovery at the bottom of Bushman's Hole is an arc of almost unimaginable steepness," observes Finch. Yet Shaw clearly knew what he was doing, and Finch chronicles Shaw's path as a methodical, deliberate and eminently competent advance rather than daredevil imprudence.

Finch also relates the somber aftermath in heart-wrenching detail -- Shaw's wife's despair and depression, Don Shirley's slow recovery from a debilitating case of the bends, and finally Shirley's advice to noice divers and the eulogy of David Shaw's daughter, Lisa.

Diving into Darkness is a beautifully crafted book, thrilling to read, and written in an engaging style and pace. -- C. H. Blickenstorfer, [...]

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unputdownable!, April 6, 2009

By	John O. Cameron - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First off, I am John Cameron's wife, not John Cameron. And I am not a cave diver, not even much of a swimmer. But I was drawn to this book because I am deeply interested in people who do extreme things for no good reason. (I like to read about mountain climbers too). Diving into Darkness was a cracking good read! I am in awe of the author's skill - we know from the jacket that this dive is not going to go well, but we don't know which of the two men will not survive. And we keep reading through the technical details, well explained, and loads of back story so that by the time we return to the fateful day, we care, we want to know what happened and how it happened. After reading this book, I have a better idea why cave divers do what they do. I learned they are not thrill seekers, on the contrary. The charge they get is that total concentration, the buzz from living in the moment. And as a keen yoga student, I do understand that. Highly recommended.

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful Experience to learn from! Dry reading!, July 13, 2009

By	UniversityDoc (USA) - See all my reviews

When I first read the inside flap, this book had me hooked, but as I read on, I quickly realized what an idiot David Shaw was; just another thrill seeker. With all due respect, the guy survived dive into Bushman's cave and lived to tell about it, but he had this incessant need to do it again. Not to bring back a fellow diver, as he first set out to do, but because he could, he comments later on.
I felt sorry for his wife, whom he left behind. He clearly loved diving more than life and his wife. One can say that he died doing what he loved, but that is also a selfish cop out. He did the dive. There was no need to do it again, execpt for the glory and publicity that was set to come with the second dive.
I don't want to give the ending away here, but the way he died was a stupid tradegy, a senseless waste of life that could have been prevented in more ways than one. I don't care how many dives someone logs, or number of classes attended, if he/she doesn't have the valued years of experience n top of that, as David Shaw didn't, things happen like this. One might say that this could have happened to anyone, but it's not true. Not every diver wants to go deeper just because they can. Not every diver wants to risk their life.
The book illustrates how Shaw only cared about numbers, the number of dives he completed. The book, as well as his log books show that. He never speaks about the beauty, ugliness of any of his dives, just how far down he went.
As far as the rest of the book goes, the background is meant for the reader to get to know and develop a kindship/empathy for the two men centered in the story. I found the writing dry, so dry that I skimmed the book to get to the ending to find out what happened to the two men. I also couldn't like Shaw. I saw hims as an arrogant, thrillseeker. As a diver, just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. It was clear that Shaw gave no thought to his friends or family, it was all about him and this dive and the dive won out. Again, what a waste of life, time and effort.
This book is a great illustration of what not to do when diving. Learn from his experience. I wouldn't recommend buying the book. It's one of those good for one read, if that, and then you'll never read it again. If you wish to read it, save your money and check it out of a library. It's just not that good of a book or story.