Scuba Geek

Ambitious project to map Island’s underwater caves June 22, 2006

Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , trackback

The island of Bermuda’s limestone caves date back between one and two million years and have never been mapped..until now. An ambitious project to map the caves using a combination of traditional cave diving techniques and technology which will follow the progress of divers from above ground, is due to start within the next 12 months. During the project the caves are also to be filmed in a documentary by Jill Heinerth, says the Royal Gazette;

One of the world’s top cave diving experts, Jill Heinerth of US-based Karst Productions, has already produced a number of films following “the water paths of the world” including exploring caves created in the ice-shelf of Antarctica.
“This seemed like a natural for an episode of ‘Water’s Journey’,” she said of the upcoming documentary on Bermuda.
“The caves here are magnificent and part of the reason is because they have been so protected. When you go swimming in the caves, it is like going through a church. The formations were formed when they were dry caves and later they became submerged.”

It seems that Bermuda’s school children will also be able to play a part in the discovery of the caves;

She explained: “We have tracking devices that allow divers to swim through the caves and send a signal up through the rock to a person above to indicate where they are.
“We’ll have kids walking above and able to speak to the divers and ask them what they are seeing. It will be an interactive experience. Where we have done this in other locations it has created a buzz and eagerness for the information afterwards.”