DRY caving on Phuket has been a popular activity with tourists for over a decade.

Thailand has some of the most spectacular caves in the world hidden away in limestone cliffs.

Around 60 million years ago the Indian plate collided with the Eurasian plate causing devastating effects across Asia, forming large mountain ranges similar to the Himalayas.
Evidence of these cataclysmic events are still evident today – chains of limestone karsts and islands such as the Phi Phi Archipelago span the coastal areas of Thailand.

Over the millennia the rain, together with underground fresh water springs, have carved caverns and caves above and below the sea’s surface all over the country.

Cave diving in Thailand is pretty much a recent affair with only a few divers possessing the local knowledge, skill and logistics to explore these amazing systems.

One particular cave had eluded my diving companions and me for several years, the Song Hong Cave.

We’d searched local sources to try and locate the system without joy until October 2007 when, on a scouting trip, myself and Dr Michael Gadd successfully located and dived the cave. We both made relatively simple checkout dives to gain an orientation and establish the site’s general conditions. Mike descended to 105 metres outside the entrance using his Ouroboros Rebreather and I journeyed inside the cave to a maximum depth of 74 metres using an ISC Megalodon Rebreather.

The conditions in the shallows are pretty poor but once below 12 metres the visibility cleared to around 5-10 meters and this continued all the way to the bottom. Water temperature was a tropical 26 degrees.

The next month was spent preparing for the larger expedition.
Mike and I joined up with deep diver Ben Reymenants who would provide a team of medical support from the SSS Chamber network where he works.

The team then assembled in Krabi. It was necessary to spend the first day at the dive site setting up our decompression trapeze and staging the shallow decompression tanks.
It proved a challenge for our support divers, as the rock face dropping from the water edge was littered with extremely sharp rock that could have easily damaged the cabling and put an end to our trip on day one.

An early morning start for the team, a quick breakfast and it was off to the cave.
A fast descent to the mainline running directly to the cave entrance at 28 metres – visibility outside the cave was poor, but once inside the cave entrance at 30 metres it cleared right up to 20 meters plus.
Now deep inside the cave, I had a scheduled dive of 20 minutes in and 20 minutes out to a maximum of 125 meters.

Having swam in for 19 minutes it was time for me to turn back to my first decompression stop.

Once back at 30 meters Dr Ljubisa our medical support joined me to ensure all was well, which it was.

My thoughts were now with Mike and his dive. Having completed my decompression I was keen to find out if Mike was back. It was confirmed that he was.

It was now time for Ben to begin his dive as he planned to retrieve the scooters from Mike to allow him access to the deep drop off. Ben’s planned depth was the same as mine.
He began his dive and journeyed to 98 meters before heading back. After 30 minutes it was reported Ben had also safely exited the cave and was making his way to the trapeze for his remaining decompression.

Six hours had passed and Mike was finishing his final decompression stop. Ben and I were both back, and in good health.

Mike finally surfaced with a big grin on his face; he’d successfully pushed the cave to 141 meters, the furthest a diver had infiltrated the cave to date.

He achieved his goal of laying new line in the passage way, of over 100 meters, a nice way for him to end his birthday.

All the deep divers took plenty of time to rest, hydrate, and grab a bite to eat while reminiscing on the trip’s events, a great trip all around.