Whether you dive deep, dangerous caves or simply admire those who do, there is no denying that cave diving is among the riskiest aspects of our sport. While people have been exploring caves since time immemorial, there is one famous diver who stands apart from the crowd of spelunkers and casual explorers. His name was Sheck Exley – a humble math teacher by profession, and the first ever to log one thousand cave dives, repeatedly setting and then breaking cave penetration records and making additional deep diving accomplishments. Here, we’ll take a look into the life of a man whose curiosity and dedication to the sport of diving knew no bounds.
A Life Underwater
Born on April 1st of 1949, Sheck Exley is widely regarded as a leading cave diving pioneer. He began diving at the age of 16, entering his first cave that same year, and continuing to dive for the rest of his life. In just over29 years of diving, he logged over four thousand dives.
Exley was blessed with an unusual resistance to nitrogen narcosis, reaching numerous depth records. In 1970, while acting as a safety diver for a pair of divers attempting to set an air-only diving record, he reached a depth of 465 feet; he could go no deeper, though the unconscious divers below him died just beyond his reach. Incredibly, all throughout his career, he never suffered from DCS – despite the fact that he is one of just eleven technical divers known to have dived beyond 800 feet when he dove to 867 feet in 1989.
Exley was not a prolific writer, however, he did publish books, including Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival, and Caverns Measureless to Man, an autobiography chronicling his many adventures. He is also credited with co-inventing the Second-stage Regulator with its multiple low-pressure hoses, which is now a standard piece of SCUBA equipment.
Some of Sheck Exley’s adventures are relayed in Daniel Lenihan’s book, titled Submerged. This non-fiction work describes Exley as an important friend and dive buddy of the author, who continued on to form the U.S. National Park Service’s Submerged Resources Center.
A Cave Diving Tragedy
Exley was diving with fellow cave diver and author Jim Bowden while attempting to set a new depth record in a Mexican cenote called Zacaton. On April 6th of 1994, at the age of 45, he was trying to reach a depth of more than 300 meters. Bowden had to abort his dive when his gas supply began to run low, and Exley continued. When his body was recovered after resurfacing on its own, his dive computer read a maximum depth of 879 feet (268 meters). The cause of Sheck Exley’s death remains uncertain, though the descent line was intentionally looped around his tank valves. Experts examining the case theorize that Exley may have been attempting to fix gas issues of his own, or that perhaps he realized that he was not going to make it to the surface alive, and affixed himself to the line to prevent potentially lethal body recovery attempts.
While we will never know for sure what happened to Sheck Exley, he is remembered as a kind man who cared deeply for his friends, family, and the sport of diving. Thanks to his efforts and his creativity, recreational cave divers are able to explore hidden realms safer than ever before.