(Really) Risky Business

Awareness applies to one's ability to holistically take in the entire dive environment. Divers who are acutely aware of their surroundings will walk up to a spring, smell the tannin in the water, and know that on this particular day, the water's visibility may be lower. As they dive into a tunnel, they observe that the silt has changed from sand to soft mud. Sand is generally indicative of a high flow; soft silt in the same passageway means that the water's velocity is decreasing, and the cave is getting wider. "You can't teach alertness and awareness," says Skiles. "I've never seen anyone develop those qualities who didn't have them [ to some degree ] in the first place."

When judging a potential partner for exploratory dives, Skiles looks for someone who is, at the least, his equal. "It's not about who is the best," he says. "It's about whom you're completely comfortable with in terms of this specific system. In these pointy-end situations, the kind of buddy I want to dive with is someone who has the will- power and the confidence to get his experience on his own. And a lot of times, I'm comfortable with no one but myself."

The Voice Of Ambition, The Voice Of Caution

Even when Skiles dives solo, he's never completely alone. There are always two voices running through his head: the voice of ambition and the voice of caution. One voice pushes him to make more discoveries. The other prevents him from plunging into the abyss. With every dive that he makes, Skiles faces a critical choice: He must decide which of those voices to heed. The answer isn't always clear.

"You have to judge the motivations of each voice," he says. "You have to ask yourself, Why is the 'don't go' voice so loud today? Is it because my problem-solving skills aren't as sharp as they should be? Or is that voice just a defensive mechanism, and if I ignore it, I'll have a great dive? When you call a dive, you never know whether you did the right thing. But there's one thing that I do know: If the safety voice isn't there, something is wrong. I've got to make myself slow down and give the dive proper consideration."

Skiles once heeded the wrong voice in a place near High Springs called the Azure Cave System, a network of tunnels that he discovered with two other divers. After rappelling by rope down a dry shaft, the trio geared up and plunged into the maw of the cave. They swam into a series of enormous rooms and then separated, each choosing to explore a different tunnel.

Skiles pushed into a chamber that gradually shrank to a height of just 18 inches. He was wearing a pair of side-mounted tanks, which often enabled him to squirm through narrow restrictions. But this was one hell of a chest-cracking squeeze. Even so, the voice of ambition said, Go. The cave's bottom was made of soft mud, and Skiles found that by bracing his feet against the ceiling, he could push off and inch his way through the muck. He was sure that the passageway would eventually open into a bigger tunnel.

He never found out. He had burrowed himself 50 feet into the chamber when suddenly his air supply began rushing out of his regulator in a torrent of bubbles. That's not all. He had stirred up so much silt that his visibility was reduced to nil. He was losing air fast, and he couldn't see a thing. Groping in the darkness, he managed to grab his backup regulator and shove it into his mouth. Horrified, he discovered that this regulator had begun free-flowing air and leaking water. Fear overcame him, but he fought off the impulse to turn and flee. His only hope was to get his priorities straight and to solve each problem.

"I knew that if I tried to run for my life on a free-flowing, flooding regulator, I wouldn't make it," Skiles explains. "I'd simply race my breathing. Then I'd choke, my trachea would spasm, and I'd drown. My number-one priority was to get control of my breathing."

Skiles grabbed the first regulator, took in a few breaths, and then -- nothing. The free flow had emptied his tank. His whole world was now reduced to learning how to get a usable breath out of a backup regulator that was force-feeding air and water. He found that by lifting his tongue, he could block the rushing water and still suck in some air. Only then, when he managed to take in a few workable breaths, did he allow himself to turn around and push his way out of the restriction.

But he wasn't home free yet. He had lost track of the guideline and was swimming blind, when suddenly the silt cleared and he broke into crystalline water -- a very bad sign. Clear water meant that he'd taken a wrong turn down a side tunnel. He had wanted to see a wall of silt: The mud that he'd kicked up on the way in marked the way out. He had no choice but to turn around and swim back into the maze. Somehow he managed to backtrack into the maelstrom of silt and retrace his passage from there. By maintaining a shallow, low-demand pattern of breathing, he was able to make it out of the cave with just a wisp of air remaining in his tank.