Cave Divers Quotes

Oh, the ongoing love affair between hair and mouths. Hair always goes for the mouth. The mouth opens, and hair says, "I'm going in! I'm going in!" like a manic cave diver.

A song of despair The memory of you emerges from the night around me. The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. Deserted like the dwarves at dawn. It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one! Cold flower heads are raining over my heart. Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked. In you the wars and the flights accumulated. From you the wings of the song birds rose. You swallowed everything, like distance. Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank! It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss. The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse. Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver, turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank! In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded. Lost discoverer, in you everything sank! You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire, sadness stunned you, in you everything sank! I made the wall of shadow draw back, beyond desire and act, I walked on. Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost, I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you. Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness. and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar. There was the black solitude of the islands, and there, woman of love, your arms took me in. There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle. Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms! How terrible and brief my desire was to you! How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid. Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs, still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds. Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies. Oh the mad coupling of hope and force in which we merged and despaired. And the tenderness, light as water and as flour. And the word scarcely begun on the lips. This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing, and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank! Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you, what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned! From billow to billow you still called and sang. Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel. You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents. Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well. Pale blind diver, luckless slinger, lost discoverer, in you everything sank! It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour which the night fastens to all the timetables. The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore. Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate. Deserted like the wharves at dawn. Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands. Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything. It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!

Both in cave diving and in life, the darkness of uncertainty was beckoning. I was scared, but I knew that if I could be brave enough to step over the brink into the blackness, my eyes would adjust and new possibilities would be revealed.

I am not fearless. I’m alive today because I’ve learned to embrace fear as a positive catalyst in my life. As I dwell on the threshold of darkness, I might be scared, but I don’t run away.

I am not fearless. I’m alive today because I’ve learned to embrace fear as a positive catalyst in my life. As I dwell on the threshold of darkness, I might be scared, but I don’t run away. I dance in the joy of uncertainty.

I had a choice to make: I could continue to be a victim or I could try to rise above the experience.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” T.S. ELIOT, from the preface to Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby (1931)

For me, acknowledging and then living my wildest dream has meant learning to accept and welcome fear.

You must be willing to get within a hair’s breadth of what you perceive as success, and no matter the investment, know when it is time to go home.

Nature Boy I was just a boy when I sat down To watch the news on TV I saw some ordinary slaughter I saw some routine atrocity My father said, don't look away You got to be strong, you got to be bold, now He said, that in the end it is beauty That is going to save the world, now And she moves among the sparrows And she floats upon the breeze She moves among the flowers She moves something deep inside of me I was walking around the flower show like a leper Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria When I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair Up against the pink and purple wisteria You said, hey, nature boy, are you looking at me With some unrighteous intention? My knees went weak, I couldn't speak, I was having thoughts That were not in my best interests to mention And she moves among the flowers And she floats upon the smoke She moves among the shadows She moves me with just one little look You took me back to your place And dressed me up in a deep sea diver's suit You played the patriot, you raised the flag And I stood at full salute Later on we smoked a pipe that struck me dumb And made it impossible to speak As you closed in, in slow motion, Quoting Sappho, in the original Greek She moves among the shadows She floats upon the breeze She moves among the candles And we moved through the days and through the years Years passed by, we were walking by the sea Half delirious You smiled at me and said, Babe I think this thing is getting kind of serious You pointed at something and said Have you ever seen such a beautiful thing? It was then that I broke down It was then that you lifted me up again She moves among the sparrows And she walks across the sea She moves among the flowers And she moves something deep inside of me She moves among the sparrows And she floats upon the breeze She moves among the flowers And she moves right up close to me

I am not fearless. I'm alive today because I've learned to embrace fear as a positive catalyst in my life. As I dwell on the threshold of darkness, I might be scared, but I don't run away. I dance in the joy of uncertainty.

But when we transcend the fear of failure and terror of the unknown, we are all capable of great things, personally and as a society. We might not always know where the journey will lead us. We might feel a burden of difficulty, but all paths lead to discovery. Both good and bad life events contribute to the fabric of who we are as individuals and as a civilization. If we continue to trek purposefully toward our dreams, into the planet and beyond, we just might achieve the impossible.

Our brains are finely attuned to novelty and new sensations, but lose focus when things become commonplace. We stop paying attention to the less-than-novel stuff, and for expeditioners that means we inevitably slide toward complacency—and sometimes we only see that slide in hindsight.

I wanted to be regarded as an accomplished explorer rather than as an accomplished female explorer. I wanted to encourage other women to fulfill their dreams despite imposed gender barriers. I wanted other women to know that difficult endeavors are possible and success is worth celebrating.

I wasn’t just exploring the pocked landscape; I was also exploring conceptual barriers. By passing through the threshold of darkness, I was discovering my psychological limits and potential. Each time my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I would find new strength, and with courage, I could go further.

That mental strength under pressure is absolutely critical for the long, deep dives that Rick and John tackle. When you are hundreds of yards into a sump, you are so isolated from the basic needs of survival that you may as well be on the surface of the moon. It’s no wonder, then, that sump divers seem to possess the same qualities as astronauts: the ability to prepare thoroughly, solve problems quickly, and keep cool in an emergency.

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All the rules had to be invented from the beginning. No one knew what the rules were, but gradually figured them out. The basics were: We’ve got to take a line. We’ve got to stay up off the floor. We have to have enough light to see. And we have to save enough air to get out.

Experienced cave divers are fond of pointing out to the public that caves do not kill divers, divers do.

Here we are on a technological cutting edge of a historical moment in underground exploration and such thoughts as, I’m going to die if I leave you, and possibly kill you if I stay with you,’ is bouncing around in the heads of people and you’re not aware of it. You don’t know that that’s what the person is thinking. And when we do get ready to turn, to head back, suddenly you’re confronted with this near fight or flight syndrome for Tom and Paul who are both getting dangerously low on gas. Actually, I could have gone on if I had had more line. But at this point, I had

For example, since there was no such thing as a means to control your buoyancy, the earliest buoyancy compensators were plastic milk jugs. To keep themselves out of the silt that obscured visibility, cave divers took the regulators out of their mouths, shot air into the jugs, and clung to them or clipped them off on their belts to give themselves more buoyancy. After that they started using jerry cans. First they tied them to their arms but found it tiring to have their arms lifted, but nothing else. So they put them back on their waist. Then they decided to use two for balance, attaching them to a military style cartridge web belt. About the time cave divers were saying there had to be a better way, the dive industry came out with what was to be called a “buoyancy compensator

When you are out of air, who wants to feel restricted? It’s a horrible feeling to barely survive an out-of-air ordeal only to get air from a person who has this little hose that’s jerking you around, holding you close to a person you do not want to be near. You want freedom. You want to go to the surface.

The biggest downfall of the cave divers in the 60s and early 70s was deep diving,” said Wes Skiles. “We’d figured out all the other things about the dangers of incorrectly using lines and lights, the air rules, and we now had pressure gauges. We had no excuse. When I came into the sport in 1973, there was really no reason not to operate safely. But deep diving they hadn’t figured out. A number of trained cave divers—all in a short period of time—lost their lives in caves.

(Oh, the ongoing love affair between hair and mouths. Hair always goes for the mouth. The mouth opens, and hair says, “I’m going in! I’m going in!” like a manic cave diver.)

Like most people, by adulthood I found myself searching for stability and certainty. It’s easy to become comfortable with the status quo, more concerned about losing ground than reaching new heights. We

I was scared, but I knew that if I could be brave enough to step over the brink into the blackness, my eyes would adjust and new possibilities would be revealed.

There are no training manuals or protocols to follow. When you’re the first to do something, there’s nobody to call for help.

When pain subsides, death is often lurking.

The Darkness Beckons or Cousteau’s The Silent World.

With a new confidence in my abilities, I recognized how important it was that I pursued things that fulfilled me.

But when we transcend the fear of failure and terror of the unknown, we are all capable of great things, personally and as a society.

When you are the person waiting, each moment stretches into eternity, and the voices in your head threaten to take over your brain.

For the rest of my life, I vowed to practice the skills needed to be a survivor. I would not hide under the covers again. I would face challenges with fierce will and optimism.

Both in cave diving and in life, the darkness of uncertainty was beckoning. I was scared, but I knew that if I could be brave enough to step over the brink into the blackness, my eyes would adjust and new possibilities would be revealed. I had moved to a new country once before, and it felt easier the second time around. The

And yet, like many women, I am often tormented with self-doubt, feeling inadequate about my accomplishments

Survival doesn’t have to be pretty, just effective.

IF I DIE, it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen.

There comes a moment when you’re confronted by fear when you have to make a choice. Surrender, or fight. And in that moment of clarity, we find what we’re made of.

My survival depends on my balancing fear and confidence.

I am not fearless. I’m alive today because I’ve learned to embrace fear as a positive catalyst in my life. As I dwell on the threshold of darkness, I might be scared, but I don’t run away. I dance in the joy of uncertainty. In the Beginning 1967–1990 MY EARLIEST MEMORY is of almost drowning.