Away from all the cameras and the spectators, Mya does what she knows best, what she longs to do, and that’s be underwater by herself. For all her accolades and recognition in the field, it comes down to this: the sense of beauty and wonder she feels in the subterranean world. It’s an honour, of course, to be chosen to be the one to lay line in an undiscovered cave, and there’s even talk of naming the chamber after her. People go on and on about her supposed fearlessness and competitive nature but all that stuff fades away when she’s down here, in the blue.
Through the small hole up on the surface, she can still make out the rounded shadows of heads peering down. They’ll be taking note of her time, checking the equipment, side-eyeing the press and onlookers who’ve come to gawk at her achievement. Most of them are open water divers; they don’t understand the attraction of what she’s doing. She gives them a thumbs up before returning to focus on her shimmering surrounds. The white limestone, the water, clear as air. She holds the reel below and beside her, then tugs on it gently, feeling its tightness.
Her first tie-up is to a jutting rock, tinged with green. Divers that come after her will appreciate its visibility and distance from the cavern walls. Down, down another thirty metres and she’s almost at the bottom. She chooses a white rock shaped like a wizard’s hat to make a second tie. Now she scans the surroundings, the stalactites, the cave coral, and the waving emerald fronds, and there – there!
A gap in the cavern wall.
Mya slows her breathing. She knows to do this when she feels an adrenaline surge and, using small ridges in the limestone, she glides over to the gap. Her torch highlights a definite hole and, tantalisingly, another dim light in the distance beyond it.
It’s narrow – cave divers don’t refer to such places as ‘squeezes’ for nothing – but she’s been through tighter. She can do this. Timing is good, oxygen levels good, breathing good. Her tank is side-mounted for this reason, as she’ll need to be as flat as she can to get through.
She ties off a sideline to take with her and moves into position, angling into the space, the tank scraping the wall, disturbing a small amount of silt. She waits a few seconds for it to settle. The squeeze continues for half a metre. The floor of the tunnel grazes her face as she edges forward. Calm. Slow, slow. The space is too tight for her to look at her watch, but she knows she needs to get a move on, and besides, she couldn’t turn around in this space if she tried. Slow. She can do this.
There’s a small rock in front of her; she moves it and continues. Another touch to the right side of the tunnel and this time she waits only a second before gliding through the silt that billows as a result, to where the space becomes a tunnel, around one metre high and two metres wide. Light in front, that’s good.
Timing is fine, though she’ll have to think about returning soon. She’s nearly at one third of her oxygen and that’s the rule to head home: a third to get down, a third to return and a third for emergencies. The tunnel opens and she’s through, she’s through!
The space is enormous. It’s a cathedral, glittering dark blue and silver. She makes a sound in her mask, a muffled whoop. As big as a football stadium – bigger. This is why we do it, she thinks, as she twirls around. This feeling: you’re the first human ever to set eyes on a place…
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