I love the ocean, I love water, but I don't think that even after years of training and preparation, I could ever dive deep without losing all composure. The ocean is beautiful but terrifying at the same time.
Once you actually start training, you move forward step by step. Now all of a sudden it becomes real, concepts of fear in your mind dissolve and you can see yourself doing it. Start!
Then you should never do so. There is a mythology in high risk sports that anyone can do them with enough training. It's just not so. As a rock climber/ice climber/back country type, diver and sailor I can tell you that some people just aren't cut out for high risk and dangerous undertakings. Panic is what kills almost every time. Failure to prepare and focus on safety is the next top driver of death in all dangerous endeavors. it's not bad luck - it's generally what you do after bad luck hits, and what you'd done ahead of time that saves you.
Was about to comment that. I am not even certified as a diver yet. Going through my open water certification now. Both of my parents are rescue divers. Only ever breathed under water two times in my entire life. But it was easy to identify what was wrong. I believe that at the bottom of the Blue Hole, Iuri was not conscious enough to be checking his computer. He was narced way before he ever hit the bottom. He was completely unaware and totally out of control of his actions. He eardrums could have easily burst from ascending so low without equalizing. He would be in lots of pain for that. I think Iuri didn’t even realize that he was in any danger as the shit hit the fan.
THE ROBO GAMER WR You should do it! As I am commenting this I am on a boat to Catalina Island to dive for my first time in open water. It has been really fun and I definitely recommend it if you are interested in it. Just make sure that you have very good instructors! I wish you luck and I hope you pursue it!
Sport diving (120 ft. max), is a relatively safe sport. Cave, wreck penetration, and deep diving (tech diving) on the other hand, is very hazardous even with the best of training, gear, and redundant equipment, many famous names in the diving world have lost their lives. I have always believed that there is too many awesome things to experience in life, so I decided early on that going beyond the limits of sports diving, even with specialized training, was not a risk that was worth taking. I have been diving since the early 1970s and have logged over 800 dives all over the world, I'm glad to still be around to enjoy it.
Well said. I was close to the tech community back in the 80's and I've known some true professionals in that arena. As for me? I came to the same conclusion that you did.
What an excellent comment from someone who is experienced in diving... I have never dived in my life but it is easy to understand why people are lured by this hole... it is quite beautiful but is it worth the risk of pushing diving limits I'd have to agree with you anything passed any safety limits is not worth the risk....
@@_chimera_ In my youth I was one of those morons, climbing mountains just for the adrenaline rush; I still keep good friends in that bunch. Instead of running their cars in the garage, some of them choose a profesional career as firefighters and in other emergency and rescue services. Their narcissitic psychopathy, along with their practical and technical knowledge, has lead them to risk their lifes saving those of other people, including stupid, ignorant morons as yourself. If you don´t know what you are talking about, just shut the fuck up.
Der lachende Sägefisch Very well said! In my younger days I climbed mountains, rock climbed and scuba dived. All for the adrenaline rush. I am a U.S. Marine combat vet and retired after 23 years as a police officer. Now, in the summer months, I am a rescue swimmer/diver as well as a solo diver working on boats and docks. Not the rush I used to look for, but now it is a more satisfying type of rush because of my knowledge base. The name caller, well he just does not get it and most likely never will. Stay safe!
Great documentary. Even if the dive plan is based on a very shallow depth limit, wall diving in deep water like the Blue Hole is deceptively dangerous for a variety of reasons. Basically it's one massively spectacular distraction with no hard stop. It takes experience and maturity to strictly adhere to one's training in this sort of environment. For instance, it only takes seconds for a distracted diver to inadvertently and often unknowingly descend twenty feet below their dive buddy...which will look like half that distance thus complicating the matter. If not immediately corrected the rate of descent only accelerates from there. In less than a minute that diver can literally be beyond help.
It reminded me to the idiotic mistakes i made when i still had like idk 5-6 dives under my belt. When the experience is still new you are still amazed more than you should by stupid things like pretty empty shells and stuff like that. We always dive with the same group. We have beginners and pros alike, smetimes it's just 6-8 people going down, sometimes it's 15, usually the rescue and masterdivers drop down deeper where they can, and the open and advanced stay at a safe level. Well this particular time i was at like a 30-35ish metres, and not at the bottom, but the bottom wasn't actually far(didn't seem like it i mean). And me the idiot decided to just drop down to pick up something from the bottom real fast. When we were back on the boat they told me i dropped down to 43. And at that moment i didn't even think about that! i was like...oh well it's not that far, let me just pick it up. I didn't even comprehend that i was pushing the safe limits with my idioic "lemme just grab that" attitude. Thankfully my buddy told me to get my ass up a few metres, and also thankfully i was an idiot where the bottom was still relatively safe.But i understand the thinking that goes on in their heads.
there are, but are more used in caves ans still even lines are quite dangerous, look up for David Shaw death, he got entagled with the line while trying to recover a corpse from 280 meters deep
That arab man has been diving the hole for 20 years and been to the bottom many times. I tell you right now, that man checks his equipment *thoroughly* inside and out before even getting close to the water, before every single dive. Careless divers, and divers who grow old, are mutually exclusive.
@Diving Unleashed I'm an Atheist diver, who regularly does deep air dives to 40 Metres, and have been down to 90 Metres on Trimix several times. Guess "Allah" likes me, even though I don't believe in him eh?
I've always wanted to learn how to but watching this is so hard. I'm watching this from inside my home but it's like watching it I feel as if I can't get air into my lungs. I can't imagine how scared, terrified, and that alone feeling he had to be experiencing. God bless him and everyone that loves him. I dont want to imagine the emotional pain they have to be going through. 💚&🙏 From Va Beach Virginia U.S.A 🇺🇸
I just watched this for the first time and it is a brilliant piece of work. Thank you so much Alan for putting your life on the line and making this video. This is going to help an unimaginable amount of divers stay alive.
This is by far the most informative video regarding the deaths on Blue hole in Dahab Egypt. I first watch the Video of the diver Yuri Lipski who died in year 2000. i been watching videos of people dying in blue hole and the mystery is getting deeper until i watch this and i fully satisfied and Mystery solve thanks to this documentary.
a simple google search , litterally the first link will tell you all you need to know, and if your not a part of any diver saftey groups on facebook,reddit, divers association etc you should be , this video told me nothing that anybody with a bit of common sense would know
Doesn’t say if the body recovery teams found the body’s at the base of the arch, near the open water side of the arch or deep in the hole where they were probably not even attempting the arch. Still very interesting.
He probably went through the arch, they say it's after that, that it gets treacherous! The body is probably in that deep hole on the other side of the arch -- I love to dive, but I'll never go there to dive! I did dive in Belize's blue hole, but I stayed near the side and I wouldn't go below 100 feet. I just felt uneasy. I won't dive anything where it's too dark to see, or has a danger of losing your way, one shipwreck was enough for me, I don't like creatures jumping out of holes to get away from you either, it can be scary! I don't dive caves either. At Monterey Bay two guys in my party went to dive a cave and when they got back (thankfully!) I asked them if the tide was going out or coming in -- they didn't know! I always check tides! An incoming tide's rogue wave can easily trap you in a cave!
Ralph Zapata Curiosity Kills the cat and this video is a prime example for my statement! Its not meant for humans to be under water. I also watched the video of the Russian diver that died too. Its not meant to be!!! Underwater sea life looks amazing but it's not worth dying for!!!
8:36 made me cry and very thoughtful and sad No idea why but losing someone or being the one who is lost and the remaining friends have to go collect your body, but is that body you? It is not. The life has vanished. The energy has returned to the earth and atmosphere. It's the circle of life. Very hard for me to understand at my younger age but I truly think the mlst valuable lesson or saying is that if this here would be forever, what would it be worth? nothing would be worth anything if it's forever... only because we are mortal, life has such a high meaning and value
I have a fear of the deep and of murky open water as well, yet I also do SCUBA diving. As long as the water is clear, not too deep (I have to be able to see the bottom, or at least know it will soon be visible once I dive down a bit, so 30-60 meters max. depth). But I would never, ever dive down in a murky dark lake with low visibility, even when the bottom might not even be down that deep.
@@abdulazizahmed4742 just in water where you can see the bottom (20-30 meters deep), or also in places where you can't see it and have no idea whats underneath you? Ever dove somewhere where the visibility was very low, and had difficulty orientating? Because thats definitely an important factor for me when I go diving, you won't be seeing me near a big precipice soon...
@@LT89NL yeah same here man. Like i never dove to a place with a low visibility or a place where i can't see the bottom. Because of my phobia. The max depth i did was 30 meters.
I went on diving trip in Cozumel for a 45 min dive and was spectacular . Never deeper than 20..25 ft plenty of marine life to watch The trip seem to last 15 min ,loosing track of time Why go to these depth of 200 ft with nothing to see I just do not understand !!
Great video, so well explained. 40 years ago I went to 24 metres and looked up at the surface and thought 'wow'. I can only imagine how the arch would've tempted me as a 25yo back then.
I enjoyed watching this. Being a Divemaster and worked on the Great barrier reef for 11 years at all different pressures. Once you run out of air , you never do it again. When i was a newbie, I ran out at 13 metre's. Dont an emergency assent. Which is never by the books that your learnt from. Panic sets in, and u just do what u can to get to the surface. never did it again. Love diving, magical feeling and place.
MEG SPARNON when we learnt to dive (long time ago) the instructor turns your air off on you (only in shallow water) the trick is not to stand up (it's shallow) but to roll over and ask your instructor to share his air. Best lesson I ever learned. until it happens, you cannot imagine what it's like. But once you know... This few seconds of understanding are crucial - it's Why I would never dive without a buddy within arms distance.
I have never done scuba diving. BUT I've engaged in other outdoor sports where I've bit off more than I was ready to chew. I am lucky to still be here. One problem is that it can be difficult to gauge how challenging something can be given people's overview. I mean, I've gone on kayaking trips where people insist you wear life jackets and have all sorts of safety training when there's only 3 feet of water. In other instances, you've facing challenging currents and winds but people are pretty chilled when they describe the experience. OR they judge your skill level by how much fancy equipment you have and assume you can handle certain things. I've found that people's anal-ness about nothing versus real warnings against serious danger significantly very by region.
That's from the book. People tend to stretch the rules, and I guess every diver, at some point, went a little deeper, or a little longer than planned.....
You gotta listen to the professional locals! Mother Nature sometimes has no mercy! I would never try to surf Mavricks or Pipeline even though I think I'm a decent surfer.. Wish that kid would've compromised and at least not gone as deep! Where was the diver he convinced to go down the hole with him??
Neil W at least he was narced out of his mind, at that depth norcosis form nitrogen is very strong (feel really drunk ) and Oxygen is actually toxic tat far down (you inhale to many oxygen particles with each breath beacause of the pressure )
You said that right! Humans are just not meant to go where they can't breathe normally, too many deadly things can (and do) happen! I like to dive, but I limit it in depths (NEVER below 100' (120' is the limit for most safe divers) and I usually don't go below about 80' because in the ocean, you can get lower so quickly, and I don't dive holes or underwater caves. I'm very curious, but not THAT curious! I want to be around for the next dive! And no matter how many times I dive, I just don't push it in any way, too much of the unexpected can happen!
And the funny thing is; We're _all_ developed _totally SUBMERGED_ - for approximately 9 months - in amniotic fluid! (But with our mother's "re-breather" - _that's_ a piece of cake!😉
Yes, because there is a lot more oxygen (that land creatures need to breathe) in the air than in the water, although fish and underwater creatures get enough O2 for their survival because they have different needs and different breathing mechanisms and systems than we do. Without the oceans and seas of the world though, man could not survive very long. We use the waters for trade routes, for a LOT of food and products, but humans have survived thousands of years on this planet because it has the right amounts of oxygen and other elements we need (and the opportunities we need to grow our food or graze animals) for us to survive, grow, progress and reproduce.
People died that were experienced too. The most dangerous thing is when people think that they are very experienced and are able to do anything, thats where it goes wrong for most apperiantly. Even though yoy are a good diver that doesnt make you immume to water pressure, running out of air or the illness.
I live in the USA and for some reason i find the commercials fascinating. And Christmas looks a hell of a lot more quaint than it does over here. LULZ watching a video about dangerous diving and all i can think about is "wow, their commercials are totally different than over the pond" LULZ
I'm a deep diver myself and I've gone over 250 meters. YOU NEED TO TAKE SPECIAL OXYGEN/NITROGEN MIXES WITH YOU! YOU WILL GET NITROGEN TOXICITY OR OXYGEN TOXICITY IF YOU GO REAL DEEP. Please watch out and be careful.
Very interesting investigation. Thanks to all of the people in this documentary, hopefully there won’t be anymore fatalities due to the blue arch. It’s beautiful, but not worth dying for. I pray that God will put fear in their hearts and wisdom in their minds before they decide to dive in the blue hole.
Well the mystery is what exactly makes it dangerous, but the answer is pretty clear: An attractive, yet deceptively technical dive site draws in many different people with various levels of capability, most of whom don't meet the standards.
I instantly started cursing when the first picture of the arch came up because it looks so available and beautiful. This is what attracts unexperienced divers and kills them. Sad..
Padi actually teaches you about the blue hole.. And 1 more reason for so much deaths in the blue hole and other countries is that most dive centers will let you dive and rent equipment without a diving license
I narced once . Luckily I caught it just before my buddy . All it was is luck. If someone wants to know what it felt like to me . Everything suddenly started to seem funny. Not hoho hehee funny , but oddly funny and progressed.
This is the most informative dive information especially with the rebreather I was shocked . I personally haven't been over 125 feet but even at that I respectively am aware of the narcosis effect when at that kind of depth and fall short on looking at diving gauge and the hopefulness that you can feel even at that small of a depth I made a mistake one time and did a emergency accent for for a instant I felt out of control ill never dive a blue hole its just not worth it .Diving is Great I have never regretted any dive even the above information sometimes even a instant can feel like a lifetime .Mr. Schmitz there is away from getting your regulator back in your mouth if that had happened .Thankfully my instructor was soo great at mentioning ever thing that could go wrong can go wrong .Just keep that phrase in your head and apply it for everything you do including getting out of bed!!
I told my two sons, 20 and 18 years of age , (3) simple “ don’t you ever “ ………1) Don’t ever go wing suit flying 2) Don’t ever use heroin ( opiates) , crack cocaine 3) Don’t ever go cave diving or wreck diving !!
i was on a beach 4ft of water with fins and a rip current was pulling me away..i started respecting the sea after that..i will only go when my mind, body and needed equipment is all in tiptop shape...always weather permiting
that was a great description of how he “fell”. im not a diver so in the past when ive seen that video i didnt quite understand i assumed he just went crazy from lack of oxygen or something and swam down.
I was in Dahab about 1 1/2 years ago. My Husband and I only went snorkeling next to the blue hole but that's it. We had fun however I never knew about the history with the blue hole.. sad☹
Actually as no recreational diver has the knowledge or equipment to dive the necessary 60 m depth to get through the arch, it should be forbidden without special permission.The hole could be patrolled by Egyptian navy divers.
Like people noticed, the big issue is how available it is. This combined with the number of less serious diving schools catering to tourists in the area with dive masters who has the bare minimum of dives to qualify and who frequently ignore students doing stupid shit or even teaching outright bs. This means there are lot’s of people diving in the area who have a brand new shining open water certificate and companies who take people on guided tours where the dive masters who lead the tours are not much more than neophyte divers themselves. This is not unique for tourist areas, same thing in Thailand, the Phillipines etc. but here you have this massive hole a stones throw off the beach which is far to inviting to inexperienced divers with poor guidance from crappy teachers. There’s no big mystery at all, it’s just to accesible in the wrong area. One could argue the authorities should limit access. Thing is, I’ve been on countless of diving trips in Egypt and the authorities in Egypt are not like in the US or Europe and they quite frankly have more important things to wory about then saving stupid tourists from their own stupidity. I do however hold the diving ”schools” responsible, they should focus far more on safety, especially knowing the danger of the hole.
A little bit of sensationalism, but mostly informative and fun. Big thanks to the uploader and of course, the producers. For other documentarians: please avoid manufactured drama. The facts and beautiful imagery speak much louder. I want to join you on a great adventure; tell me a captivating story. But please don't cheapen it with silly effects, editing and sound effects to artificially create a sense of urgency. Tell me a story, show me scaled graphics to demonstrate the space and physics. Again, thanks to all involved. I am inspired by this!
As I was watching this I couldn’t help but think that trying to go through the arch is something that my younger self would’ve tried if I had ever had the opportunity to dive there and it terrified me. This video was like scary as hell for me to watch
I do understand the allure of the deep . .it has called to me many times. . .lucky me it was not in extreme situations . . .. I remember looking up from 120 feet while diving and seeing my husband beckoning me to come up. ..
I've snorkelled the area just 3 days ago & later came to know the grim stories. Recalling the scenario itself its definitely not for the faint hearted. Thanks for this informative film about the blue hole.
I'm a very experienced diver. Done almost every dive known to man. The dive that shook me up was Devil's Den in Florida. It scared the hell out me. Since then I stick to wreck dives. Ty for the video, this is no joke one mistake you done
I dived Dahab and the top of the blue hole (not the arch) in 1998, it was empty. I stayed at the canyon dive centre and it was 30 mins in the back of a pickup into the desert - Nothing there. we'd just hire a taxi and drive along the coast - NOTHING around the blue hole sad to see how much development.
It's amusing that don't seem to understand that it's people like you who drive such development. Locals saw people like you wanting to go there. You stay in their towns and buys supplies from them and eat at their restaurants and hire them to do jobs for you for long enough and they start to see an economic opportunity in developing around this site that was attracting people like you. No doubt you then went back to Australia and started telling your friends how awesome the site was. Especially when you consider the time period of when you went there, you certainly had a hand in the development of this area.
Probably stupid but why not just put a red sign that Say : "Up" or "down" so Nobody would be confuse by the Light coming from the Arch? Cost 20$ and could save lifes...no?
Former cave diver in Fla. I remember many caves had a white sign with say 8 or 10 etc crossed out and then 12 or so divers have died here. I have seen " Nothing in this cave is worth your life." One iirc Jenny Springs put bars and a metal door with a lock and to enter the cave you must get the key, lock the grating behind you as you enter. Betreen myself,father and his brother we pulled 6 divers out dead in about 5 yrs time. Check cave diving florida. Makes this dive seem simple. This bluehole is just very deep but overall a novice dive.
I were thinking about scuba diving in recent weeks and after all the research and documentaries including this one I decided to stick to save old free diving and spearfishing I done for so many years. Really extra 20 meters and extra 10 minutes under water not worth it.
Imagine diving down there and seeing the weightbelts cut of in panic by dying divers hoping that you have done everything right when you did your double-check just to recognize that you forgot something really important. These guys showed there don't need weightbelts because they got balls of steel
You can theoretically, but it all depends on how narc'd you are, how much air you have left and how much lift your BCD has. Since you're already sinking faster and faster, the volume of air is compressed to 1/5 compared to sea level at 40m, 1/6 at 50m, 1/7 at 60m and so on, and that your BCD inflator hose shares the tank with your regulator, you would be extremely pressed on time to breathe. Also, most BCD has around 40lbs of lift, if you are carrying extra gears and tanks you will need to inflate your BCD more to lift you up due to weight. Once again, if you are running extremely low or even out of air then you have nothing to inflate your BCD with. More importantly, if you are so narc'd that you can't realise the situation you're in, you can't do anything to rectify it. Hope it helps.
I'm a PADI divemaster and I dove one of the blue holes in Belize. Almost before I knew it I was at 160 feet. Almost no points of reference except for the light from above. blow me I saw hundreds and hundreds of hammerhead sharks that didn't look any bigger than the end of my thumb indicating how much deeper they were. Any sort of equipment malfunction diver panic or trying to save one of your buddies who had gone deeper than you would turn you into shark meat as well. Honestly there is no same reason to dive deeper than a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet which I did once at the devil's throat in Cozumel. And the gentleman assigned has a dive buddy to one of my friends had no concept a buoyancy and kept getting stuck to the ceiling of wherever we were. My friend ended up getting the bends because of him having to deal with this unqualified idiot. I think most of the blame goes to the dive operators who are so enamored of the big bucks that they send down unqualified divers.
Thank you for explaining the video yuri, i have seen it many times but never could understand as a non diver what happend. His video is shared o dont know how many times but never i have heard a reason why and what happend. So thanks and for al the divers the best of luck
Yeah I'm not watching recorded Christmas commercials,and I realize you uploaded this years ago,but if your too lazy to edit them out; well then I'm too lazy to hit the like button.
There is no mystery - this technically challenging dive site (overhangs, arch, deep bottom, limited professional supervision, easy access, foreign country, etc.) is fed a regular diet of untrained, inexperienced divers! Having said that, this video presents a nice list of some common mistakes even experienced divers like me (650+) must PLAN to avoid - on every dive.
I don't want to hear that Bell toll sound effect anymore just 10 minutes left if I hear it one more time I'm going to scream AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH Not even a minute later!
That's one reason I think open water divers should be educated about what tech diving is. If they know the equipment needed they might realize "hey may be I shouldn't go this deep without trimix"
This documentary was almost in the same format of Jeremy wades river monsters, and I find the story telling element as well as the educational worth to be spectacular, them dang commercials though haha
I was just reading up on surface tension and electrical charges on his last filming of the schooner that sank perfectly on the Lake Huron grain route between two different temperature fronts crossing at the same time. Easy to figure out.
Excellent presentation. This helped me to understand why diving can be dangerous. TESTOSTERONE! It kills a lot of men in a lot of different activities. Cars, motorcycles, airplanes etc.
She doesn't know feet from meters! She thinks she "went down 64" and since she thinks in meters, that would be 192 feet. but the fact she let air OUT of her BC instead of inflating it shows her inexperience and possible hypoxia (low O2) and/or narcosis but her buddy "dragged her back up to 25 meters" which is 75 feet so who really knows the accuracy of her words. Maybe she was down 72 more feet than the max of 120' but who knows -- I'd say she was very lucky to have a buddy who knew what he was doing! (No wonder they have a hyperbaric oxygen chamber at Dahab since there are so many obvious amateurs who want to dive there.) I don't think I would dive there without an experienced Dahab diver and a rebreather and extra tank and light, triple redundancy in safety divers and probably not even then because all that might not stop narcosis or a chance situation that could kill you!!
I would never do these things. I completely hate the idea. I hate being in such a big ocean. I mean I love the Ocean but without me being in it(except from the beach undeep water) where there is land nearby. And I will never cave dive in land or in the water. Never! But OMG that fish with those big eyes :0
I am far of the sea, way up high in the alps and its quite the same here. Unexpirienced people go climbing or hiking.. wanna achieve something special..doing a long route or wanna get to a famous high peak. Without a guide. The result is an average of 2 dead per month here. Summer and winter combined... VERY IMPORTANT!!! Whatever you do, get in contact with the locals first!
