Cave diving
It started with a dip into a flooded sinkhole. A discovery of epic proportions. It has left scientist baffled, excited and gasping for air.
Possibly one of Madagascar’s best kept secrets, and wonders, is being explored currently by Madagascar Underground in co operation with the Dominican Republic Speleology Society, and Quiet Diver Team from Mexico.
These flooded caves are located in one of Madagascar’s most unknown, and remote national parks ‘Parc Tsimanopetsoste’.
Aven was the first cave discovered and explored by Ryan Dart and the former team of Atlantis Madagascar. After hearing about the cave, and waves in that area, Phillip Lehman and Patrick Widmann soon arrived and together, the consecutive discoveries and explorations of Vintany, Malaza Manga, and connections of Mitoho and the bat cave secured proof of the first flooded cave system in Madagascar. The first of more to come.
Aven is now open to the public as a spectacular cavern dive. However some dive centers and instructors are leading guided dives with unsuspecting open water clients here, and have been exceeding recognized and well established recreational and cavern dive limits and have been unnecessarily putting unsuspecting peoples lives at risk.
There have been over 600 deaths in caves, almost all of which were untrained divers and many Open Water instructors in caves exactly like this one.
NO AMOUNT OF PREVIOUS OPEN WATER
DIVING EXPERIENCE OR TRAINING CAN
ADEQUATELY PREPARE YOU FOR CAVE DIVING!
Our aim now is to explore, survey and conserve all submerged caves in Madagascar. Flooded caves are fragile geological time capsules holding clues that could one day help solve the many mysteries of earth’s ancient past. This is evident in Aven with the largest collection of bones and fossils found in the country. Madagascar Underground, working with Madagascar National Parks could soon open the worlds first underwater museum here.
For more information on the flooded caves in Madagascar, and guided tours, contact us!
Hey! So my name is Georgia and I am currently working as a dive instructor on a marine conservation project (with a company called Frontier) in Nosy Be, Madagascar. I heard about your project because my friend introduced me to a guy called Dave who works in a dive centre on the Gold Coast in Australia and he mentioned that he knew someone who had gone to Madagascar to explore cave diving in the area, he told me to check out your blog (Madagascar underground). Anyway, I don’t really know much about your project but I watched a video on Vimeo showing some of the caves and it looks really quite incredible. Myself and a friend of mine (who are both instructors and have our cave diving specialities) would be extremely interested in having an opportunity to dive in these amazing looking caves. However, we don’t know how it works or if it is even possible yet. We would really really appreaciate any information you could send us as we would love the opportunity to check it out! Merci beaucoup!
Amazing! You know I love your blog!!!