Boesmansgat

Boesmansgat, sometimes called Bushman's Hole, is a sinkhole in dolomite on a farm in the Northern Cape: a small opening in flat scrub leading to a flooded shaft dived to more than 280 metres, which makes it one of the deepest freshwater caves known. The water is clear, still and cold, and at surface elevation around 1,500 metres, which compounds the decompression problem. It has a grim history in technical diving: Deon Dreyer died there in 1994 and his body lay at depth for a decade; Dave Shaw died in 2005 attempting to recover it, an incident recorded on his own camera and written about extensively since. Nuno Gomes set a record dive here in 1996, to 282.6 metres. For anyone who is not an extreme technical diver the visit is looking at a hole in the ground on private land with permission - which is genuinely all there is to see, and which is the safe version.

History

The cave has been dived to 283.9 metres. Eben Leyden died here in 1993 after blacking out at 60 metres, and in 1994 Deon Dreyer died on the ascent at 50 metres while helping a team prepare a dive. In 1996 Nuno Gomes reached a record 282.6 metres, getting stuck in the bottom mud for two minutes before he escaped. On 24 November 2004 Verna van Schaik set the women's world record for the deepest scuba dive here, at 221 metres; on 8 January 2005 Dave Shaw died, tangled in the line, while trying to bring up Dreyer's body, his support diver Don Shirley nearly dying too, and on 12 January both bodies were recovered near the surface. In October 2022 Karen van den Oever broke her own Guinness record here, and in May 2024 Richard Harris explored the bottom breathing a hydrogen mix (Wikipedia, Boesmansgat).

What you'll find

• The 270-metre shaft - one of the deepest known freshwater caves, from a small surface opening.
• The altitude factor - a dive at 1,500 metres elevation, which worsens decompression.
• The diving history - deaths in 1994 and 2005 that made the site notorious.
• The surface reality - for non-divers, a hole in flat farmland, nothing more.

When to go

April to September. Half a day, with permission arranged in advance.

Practical notes

This is private farmland - arrive only by arrangement. Diving here is for extreme technical divers with support teams, and people have died; it is not a site to attempt on ambition. For everyone else there is very little to see at the surface, and that is the honest summary.

Nearby

Danielskuil is the nearest town; Kuruman and the Eye are north.

Key facts