Gennadiy Samokhin broke the existing depth record here in 2 0 0 7, a n d a l m o s t p a i d f o r i t w i t h his life. he suffered from the bends Taking it all down Lowering supplies to make underground camps can be painstakingly slow
passage to the underwater floor of the cave and carry heavy equipment for other cave divers. A third group, The Lithuanians, are also experienced divers with a specific and important role: to assist Gennadiy Samokhin in his attempt to set a new depth record.
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amokhin has been involved in speleology for over 20 years. The gaunt, bearded Ukrainian lives in Crimea and reckons he spends five months a year underground. During a 2007 expedition in Krubera, Samokhin broke the existing depth record. He travelled the last few metres underwater, in the Dva Kapitana sump, and almost paid for it with his life. To get out of the sump, he had to squeeze through three narrow passages. In the last tight spot, his wetsuit ripped and
icy water came in direct contact with his body. To avoid hypothermia, he had to get out of the water quickly – too quick to dispel the nitrogen that had accumulated in his body during the dive. He appeared at the mouth of the sump more than half an hour before scheduled, and suffered horrendous vision problems from the bends, tiny nitrogen bubbles clogging the capillaries in his brain and his eyes. Samokhin finds caving inspiring. He uses every spare minute above ground to look for new caves, to ask questions about their topography. He talks only of caves. Yet breaking the depth record is last on his list of goals. He prefers instead to consider the complexity of the undertaking, because he knows that for the journey down, he needs an experienced and trustworthy team. He knows he has to pace himself. He 53