I should start this with the due-Diligence piece really, so here goes, Caves and Caverns are unique and beautiful environments, they often see so few visitors as to be considered “pristine” environments. Those environments, especially caves, present very unique challenges and, without putting too dramatic an implication on this, they can easily become fatal for those who do not embark into their depths with healthy respect and specific training. So please do not take these pieces as encouragement to cavern or cave dive, if this kind of thing is an attraction, take the time to undertake proper training before you push into another world, that’s not how things started for me, however it SHOULD be how it starts for you………The dangers are well described elsewhere, in diving text books and tales of adventure by people like Martyn Farr, Phil Short and Richie Stevens, legends within the tight knit cave diving fraternity, check out Martyn’s book “THE DARKNESS BECKONS” which is practically the cave diving “standard” and which I loved!
My own cavern & cave adventures started in Croatia (26/09/1992), completely by accident, and without any real understanding of what I was about to do. This was not a planned event for me, I had been diving with a couple of Croats, Igor & Jellicho, over the last couple of months as part of a UN recreational diving programme. I had been asked to set-up the programme by my boss, WO1 Chris Cjaia, for those of us from the British Army serving in what had recently been “Yugoslavia”, as a provision of recreational activity for R&R (as the briefing from HQ said we would not be allowed out of country (back home) whilst on the 6 month tour). We were in “Former Yugoslavia” as part of the UN forces in “UNPROFOR” a multi-national undertaking, supposedly as a physical, but non-combative, barrier between the opposing forces of Croatia and Serbia following some brutal, if localised, confrontations in places like Vukovar and Mostar. This was the UN desperately trying to stop the country descending into self destruction following the outbreak of hostilities, as Croatia announced its intentions of state-hood (in the vacuum after Tito’s death, when it was clear he left no obvious successor), and meant the far richer republic of Croatia, with it’s burgeoning coastal tourist industry, had a perfect opportunity to ditch the largely peasant based farming economy of Serbia, and the rest of the Six republics (Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovenia) that had been forced to become “Yugoslavia” following WWII, and the Yalta conference, where the victorious Allies carved up what had been Nazi, axis alliance countries……
So, I am in Pula on the Istrian peninsula of Croatia and I am looking for a suitable outfit to support the Open Water phase of a planned BSAC Novice 1 and 2 qualification “in theatre” so those on this tour get an opportunity to do something different and take some of the pressure off, whilst serving in such a conflict, without being able to get back to the UK for R&R in the usual manner. This means searching out anyone still willing to operate in an economy that, in real terms, is “tanking”……. Chris Cjaia gave me a simple brief, go coastal, find someone who is still operating, check them out and offer them some would-be divers……….How could I refuse? As is often the case in such circumstances, there is always someone who can see opportunity…… even if the rest of the world has gone to Hell in a handcart locally! Step-in Vlado and his business partner Slavko, who ran Murgons dive centre in easier times along with their dive guides Igor and Jellicho………
So, I have contacts, I have a viable dive centre with reasonably modern dive equipment, now to try some diving…..just to ensure everything is “Kosher” you understand…… I have had the go-ahead from our local Officer in Charge (OiC), Captain Nick Stansfield, and have taken a couple of local dives, which I will detail in another thread on here, and, oddly, Igor says “You’ll need a good torch for this next dive Colin”….unusual, as its daylight, in the Adriatic sea and, so far, the viz has been Twenty or Thirty metres or better…..I’m intrigued! Bear in mind this is my Fourth dive with Jelicho and Igor over a period of Four months and I have already put several UK forces trainees through their Novice 1 and 2 open water skills in the bay at Punta Verudella successfully. It seems that Igor and Jellicho have come to the conclusion I’m alright, and an OK diver, and that means I’m ready to be shown their local jewel…….
It doesn’t take much imagination, considering the title of this piece, to figure out what comes next, an intriguing need for “a good torch”, the fact I’d previously expressed a love for some winding swim-through’s (different piece, yet to come…..) that we’d carried out earlier in the year, and Igor with what could only be called a “shit-eating grin” on his face telling me to “trust me”, but as time had passed following that dive, and knowing that there were deeper dives available locally which might warrant a torch, I could be forgiven for being a little clueless…… So when Jellicho said “we’re taking you to see the washing machine…” I just couldn’t figure out what was going on….truly! The inflatable trip out wasn’t long, perhaps 15 or so minutes until we slowed and prepped to enter, then a backward splash into the beautifully warm Adriatic, everyone OK…..fine, then the descent, we were a bit closer to the headland than we had been before, and I remember wondering what the lads had in store, but after a 10 minute swim along the face of the rocky outcrops we had moored next to, a gaping hole showed in front of me and I had a decision to make……Did I trust Igor and Jellicho enough to follow them into what was, quite obviously, a cave……… sitting at somewhere between 15 and 20m the entrance was wide, this wouldn’t be a squeeze, but I could see why they had called it the washing machine! The Adriatic is not a large sea, it sits between Italy and Croatia, it is strategically important as evidenced by campaigns by both sides of two conflicts who sought to wrest control from both the local populous and from each other, but it isn’t often an angry sea, it’s tidal range being somewhere round a meter (compared to some areas of the UK with 8m range.)….But you could see the surge into this cave, the sea crashing up and causing the gaping mouth to froth and millions of bubbles form like an angry aquarium aerator going crazy….. I knew I shouldn’t enter, I wasn’t trained to cave dive, but I trusted Igor and Jellicho, they weren’t going to take me anywhere more life-threatening than diving itself was and I bit the bullet and followed………..
I switched on the torch and it lit up well, I don’t know if it was Igor or Jellicho that led us in, but the surge was amazing and yes, I could believe I was in a washing machine as the bubbles were all around, only added to by our exhaled air, as we pushed through the yawning cave mouth and started to make our way down the tunnel beyond the cave entrance. The swim got easier within 10m or so and the surge was obviously calmed a little as the tunnel widened as we swam further in. There was nothing outside our torch beams as we swam on, but I could make out disturbance up ahead and we were getting shallower and shallower….. It was an amazing feeling to me to haul up onto what was, effectively, a hidden, subterranean beach inside the Limestone headlands of Istria. We crawled carefully up the small pebble beach and lay back on our cylinders, just out of the water, to listen to the gentle waves lapping the pebble beach and watched as Jellicho lit the surrounding caver with his torch. This was something truly beautiful, not full of Stalagmites or Stalactites but a large cavern, under water, with a pebble beach……like every Atlantis movie you ever saw, or 20000 leagues beneath the Sea……wonderful to see and you imagined, just out of sight, a winding staircase up to a hidden exit into some castle or cave system long forgotten by all but a few….. The swim out was brilliant too, the tunnel being between 30 and 50m or so long, the re-entry to the water surreal as we made our way, by torchlight, towards an ever bigger bright Blue circle that marked the caves exit, and another rinse cycle, before we could ascend to the waiting inflatable and the inevitable round of Shit-Eating grins……and mine was…..by far the broadest of them all…….epic!