New World Depth Record

[Boness Sub Aqua]

South African diver plunges to new heights

Jonathan Ancer
June 13 2005 at 11:18AM
South African scuba supremo Nuno Gomes is the deepest diver in the world. On Friday, after 12 hours and 20 minutes of Red Sea time, Gomes surfaced with a new world record under his belt.

Official measurements revealed he had reached a depth of 318.25m.

Gomes, a 52-year-old engineer, reached a depth the length of the Eiffel Tower, including the aerial at the top.

Even though he had planned to go to 320m, his plunge was still enough to beat Mark Ellyatt's 313m record set in Thailand in 2003.

It took Gomes about 20 minutes to reach that depth and 12 hours to surface in order to decompress.

Gomes is one of only a handful of divers who have been below 250m.

In fact, more people have gone to the moon than have gone to that depth.
He now holds the world records for the deepest sea and deepest cave dives.

In 1996 he descended into the inky blackness of Boesmansgat, in the Northern Cape, 282.6m under water.

[divermckay]

jonathan ancer was following a shot line and was narcked,
the line was caught in a slight current so as a favour ( THATS ANOTHER ONE YOU OWE ME JONNY BOY) i swam down first to hold the bottom for him
when he finally reached me i looked at my dive timer and scotsac tables and realised he had only enough gas for a stop of one minute at three metres so i unclipped my two twenty litre side slungs and put them on him(AS I SAID HE WAS NARCKED)

The extra kit caused him to drop below me about a metre before i got his bouancy under control
after i brought him back to two hundred metres he improved enough to carry on himself

i then noticed that i had dropped my ankle weights and decended to the sea bed at three twenty found and refitted them and headed for the surface

i found jonny at ninety metres doing an unnecessary stop coz his VR3 had packed in so i gave him my aladin sport and spare tables did my ten minutes at nine twelve at six and surfaced( i was bored doing deco so just missed the fifteen at three)


after he eventually surfaced and got back onto the rhib he refused to give me my computer back hence he has now got the deepest dive in the world it was actually me but since im modest i'll let it lie ;D