"Cave diving has been called the "most dangerous participatory sport" in the world. It doesn't have to be. With proper training, experience, and guidance, you can be a skilled cave diver, and enjoy this challenging and rewarding activity, for a lifetime. With decades of technical diving experience, including world record cave dives, and paradigm changing underwater exploration, Woman Divers Hall of Fame member Jill Heinerth, has created this full-color contemporary guidebook. Generously illustrated, "The Essentials of Cave Diving - 3rd Edition" contains practical, 21st century underwater knowledge, including sidemount techniques and the latest rebreather technology. Encompassing all levels of cave diving, from entry-level to expert, this manual is an essential tool; appropriate and relevant to all cave training disciplines"--Publisher's description.

Cave diving has been called the most dangerous sport. It doesn't have to be. With proper training, experience, and guidance, you can become a skilled cave diver, and enjoy this challenging and rewarding activity, for a lifetime. With decades of technical diving experience, including world record cave dives, and paradigm-changing underwater exploration, International Scuba Divers Hall of Fame inductee Jill Heinerth, has created this contemporary guide book. Generously illustrated, The Essentials of Cave Diving - 4th Edition contains practical, recently updated underwater knowledge, including sidemount techniques and the latest rebreather technology. Encompassing all levels of cave diving, from entry-level to expert, this manual is an essential tool, appropriate and relevant to all cave training disciplines.

Encyclopedia of Caves, Third Edition, provides detailed background information to anyone with a serious interest in caves. This includes students, both undergraduate and graduate, in the earth, biological and environmental sciences, and consultants, environmental scientists, land managers and government agency staff whose work requires them to know something about caves and the biota that inhabit them. Caves touch on many scientific interests in geology, climate science, biology, hydrology, archaeology, and paleontology, as well as more popular interests in sport caving and cave exploration. Case studies and descriptions of specific caves selected for their special features and public interest are also included. This book will appeal to these audiences by providing in-depth essays written by expert authors chosen for their expertise in their assigned subject. - Features 14 new chapters and 13 completely rewritten chapters - Contains beautifully illustrated content, with more than 500 color images of cave life and features - Provides extensive bibliographies that allow readers to access their subject of interest in greater depth

The Huautla in Mexico is the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere, possibly the world. Shafts reach skyscraper-depths, caverns are stadium-sized, and sudden floods can drown divers in an instant. With a two-decade obsession, William Stone and his 44-member team entered the sinkhole at Sotano de San Augustin. The first camp settled 2,328 feet below ground in a cavern where headlamps couldn't even illuminate the walls and ceiling. The second camp teetered precariously above an underground canyon where two subterranean rivers collided. But beyond that lay the unknown territory -- a flooded corridor that had blocked all previous comers, claimed a diver's life, and drove the rest of the team back. Except for William Stone and Barbara am Ende, who forged on for 18 more days, with no hope of rescue, to set the record for the deepest cave dive in the Western Hemisphere.

Finch chronicles the harrowing true story of two friends who plunge 900 feet into the water in South Africa--and only one returns. What happened that day is the stuff of nightmarish drama, but it's also a compelling human story of friendship and of coming to terms with loss and tragedy. 8-page color photo insert.

Cave divers are the elite, and this is their story--a story of pushing the limits of technology and human endurance.