Projects > Source de Vis 2007 (September)
Sabotage
Latest update: October 6, 2007
It is hard to believe but the mindset of terror and destruction is even present under cave divers. Asking for the motivation for the act of sabotage is useless, because the mental balance of those who act destructive, is outside the general understanding.
One of the sabotaged RB80's.
The Vis cave is located relatively remote. There is an old mill nearby which is visited by a number of tourists during day time. The access to the cave is via climbing some rocks and crawling through a small crack at the entrance. Lights are necessary to see something in the dry part of the cave. So the dry part is quite well protected and out of reach for people who are not affiliated with cave diving.
The diving gear has to be carried from the parking place about 1500 meters away. It is dissembled and transported through the entrance crack and reassembled in the dry part of the cave. Due to the amount of gear necessary for an exploration dive all this setup needs a day of preparation.
We usually leave the cave early in the evening to sleep in the tents at the parking place. So we did during our May project.
The other sabotaged RB80.
Very early next morning we found out that our equipment in the dry part of the cave had been sabotaged. The rebreather frames were opened, which needs a wrench, the rebreathers opened and the absorber dropped out. A wing and several hoses were cut, some cylinders emptied and the lights were switched on. One bottom timer was stolen.
From the burn time of our lights we could calculate that this happened around 10 pm, just when it got dark.
Only the push dive equipment was destroyed, the support gear was untouched.
The damaged wing.
The kind of damage and the fact that the rebreather setups were dissembled by someone who knew how to do it clearly shows that this was done by a cave diver.
The cut inflatorhose.
One of our guys had been asked by an unknown person on the setup day when the "push dive" will happen. "Push dive" is a quite specific word and not used by an uninformed person.
Well, the game was over on this day, but on the coming projects we were prepared with guards and electronic safety devices. And these projects were equally successful from the exploration point.
Reinhard