Customer Reviews

Diving into Darkness: A True Story of Death and Survival

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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, [...]

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.

I'm an avid diver, with almost 400 dives under my weight belt, yet I still haven't got my Advanced. I started diving at the age of 48. Dave Shaw was doing extremely dangerous dives very soon after he started diving: going to extreme depths around his fiftieth dive, etc. In spite of this, he may have survived on that body-recovery dive in a sinkhole in Sth Africa if literally everything hadn't gone wrong. This is a suspenseful story, well-written and definitely of great interest to anyone into diving and the potential for disaster while diving (it's a morbid curiosity of mine to imagine all the things that could possibly go wrong whilst diving).

It is inevitable that comparisons will always be made between great books within the same genre. Such is the fate of Phillip Finch's "Diving Into Darkness". This engaging book concerning the the rarefied world of deep diving will forever be compared to the ever-popular "Shadow Divers" by Robert Kurson. In both sagas the story unfolds at unimaginable depths where even the slightest mishap/mistake can and does cascade into a fatal event.

Notwithstanding further comparisons, "Diving Into Darkness" is a about a diver (David Shaw) who in the span of only 5 years went from a "rank beginner(diver) to one of the most accomplished and ambitious divers" in the history of sports diving. The depths to which Shaw achieved (700 ft to 900 ft) were often record dives on a non rebreather apparatus; "more men have walked on the moon."

In June 2004, during a cave dive at Bushman's Hole Shaw descended to an astounding depth of almost 900 feet. What he inadvertently discovered was the body of a young cave diver lost to a diving mishap some 10 years earlier. Though the author makes little note of the fact that Shaw is deeply religious and that Shaw had a previous dream envisioning that he would discover this body, Shaw felt that God has guided him to the body so that he can retrieve it for the still grieving parents of the young diver. All this would be little known to the world except for the fact that the mainstream media picked up the story; a story in which the media (newspapers, magazines, radio, television and a video team) intended to document this Herculean effort to retrieve the body at the bottom of a 900 ft deep cave. This is diving at the extreme!

Unfortunately all does not go as planned and as a result, the media and the reader witnesses a tragedy in the making. Phillip Finch documents this in a manner where the reader is aware of the inescapable tragedy but can't stop reading the next page, much like witnessing a train you know is going to crash but you can't stop looking at it.

As is common with all great extreme adventure stories where human boundaries are tested, this story involves the elements of courage vs. calculated recklessness, altruistic goals vs potentially deadly practicalities and perhaps foreseeable tragedy vs. almost averted tragedy (sadly, "what could have been").

For those of us who are scuba divers, and even those of you who are not, this is certainly a book worthy of read. Is it better than Shadow Divers? You tell me.

Lastly, I must add that I read this story as it was originally titled : Phillip Finch's "Raising The Dead" An Australian Story of Death and Survival. While the title is slightly different the novel is exactly the same ("word for word") but is a different edition of the same book.

In January 2005, David Shaw attempted to recover from the floor of Bushmansgat, or Bushman's Hole, the body of a diver who had died there in December 1994. The depth was 270 meters, 886 feet. Sheck Exley had reached a higher point on the bottom of this cave in South Africa in 1993 at -263 meters, the first person to do so. He suffered greatly from HPNS during the deeper part of that dive. Shaw died in the recovery attempt, and his deepest support diver, Don Shirley, suffered a rebreather control-system failure and a serious inner-ear-bends event. All this was heavily publicized at the time, and most cave-divers are probably vaguely aware of it.

This thoroughly researched book covers the dive in detail, as well as topics like previous diving in Bushmansgat and Shaw's and Shirley's prior diving careers. It is non-technical, written for a popular audience, and there are brief but clear explanations about things like the need for trimix and the hazards of decompression sickness during such dives. The text is well crafted, if not particularly wonderful, and reads smoothly. The book is not nearly as long as the number of pages implies, because the type is large and widely spaced within generous margins. There are a good index and a few appendixes, including a eulogy by Shaw's daughter Lisa. --Bill Mixon

I enjoyed this book and as a rule devour any books written on diving. This is one of the better in the genre- going inside the world of some EXTREME divers as they push the envelope on maximum depths- 270 meters?- you got to be kidding me- that's 9 football fields strung end to end! I like to feel that I am a fairly accomplished advanced diver but the deepest I have been is 40 meters and after reading this book do not plan to venture deeper! Well written, it really picks up at the last section when describing Don Shirley's decompression from hell.The book however and probably all others to come on diving in the future falls short of to me one of the great adventure books of all time - Shadow Divers- if you havent read it- get it NOW!

I liked this book. It's rather tragic. It shows the dangers of extreme rebreather diving, and why the simplest mistakes or equipment failures are most likely fatal.

Being a scuba diver, I was anxious to read this book when I found it. It is based on a true story, which makes it even more riveting. I couldn't put it down! This book isn't for everyone, as it is all about extreme diving and has a lot of technical talk about diving, in general. If you are a diver, this is a great book to read. There are unfortunate and untimely deaths in this book, which is a huge risk for extreme divers.

Very good. Not just a tale of what happend (you need only an A4 for that), but a look into the character that makes such a diver, the build up and the aftermath. Certainly worthwhile reading. Also covers some of the diving legends like Gomez and Exley - both who also went to the bottom of Bushman's Hole.

Only annoyance - the author can't make up his mind about using front or last names.

I could not put this book down. It is well-written and very well paced. I learned a lot from this book; I had no idea about the world of extreme diving.

Even if you are not into diving or sports in general, this is a book for everyone and a must-read.