Karen van den Oever sets new cave diving record

Karen van den Oever dived to a depth of 246.65 meters and set a new Guinness World Record for women’s cave diving.

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A native of Johannesburg, South Africa, van den Oever dived into the famous Boesmansgat cave on Thursday, October 27. She set her new record on open circuit and improved the previous record by more than 10 meters. It is worth noting that The broken record also belonged to Karen and she set it in 2021.

It is worth noting at this point that women’s records in diving – especially cave diving – can hold for a very long time. In 2021, Karen van den Oever broke Verna van Schaik‘s record, which was almost 17 years old! Also a native of South Africa, van Schaik plunged to a depth of 221 meters on November 28, 2004. She also set her record during a dive in the Boesmansgat cave.

Located in South Africa, the Boesmansgat cave is an almost iconic site for divers. It has been explored by such diving pioneers as Sheck Exley and Nuno Gomes. The latter also set a world record in cave diving in 1996 by descending to the very bottom (283 m).

In addition to Guinness World Diving Records, the cave has also been the site of great tragedies. One of the most famous is the death of David Shaw in 2005. The Australian was killed while trying to retrieve the body of a young diver who had suffered an accident years earlier.

A magnificent and exciting expedition in search of unknown caves in Sulawesi is the topic we have presented in the 19th issue of our the DIVERS24 quarterly magazine! The digital version of the magazine is available free of charge, while the printed version can be purchased in our online shop.