Record dive and exploration in Albania's Viriot cave - video

Listen to this article Krzysztof Starnawski, exploring the Viriot cave in Albania in recent days, reached the bottom of the cave by diving to a depth of 278 metres! Thus, he improved his own Polish record in cave diving, set during the dive in Hranicka Propast, when he dived to the depth of 265 metres.

ByTomasz Andrukajtis

Published: July 25, 2016 - 16:57

Updated: July 22, 2023 - 13:45

Record dive and exploration in Albania’s Viriot cave – video

Listen to this article

Krzysztof Starnawski, exploring the Viriot cave in Albania in recent days, reached the bottom of the cave by diving to a depth of 278 metres! Thus, he improved his own Polish record in cave diving, set during the dive in Hranicka Propast, when he dived to the depth of 265 metres.

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Starnawski also conducted the deepest documented cave dive with the use of CCR to date. The Pole also came close to the world record of 282.6 set by Nuno Gomes, during a dive in the deepest flooded cave on Earth – Boesmansgat in South Africa.

Unfortunately, the Viriot cave turned out to be shallower than the one in which Nuno Gomes set his record. Otherwise, we would probably have had a new world record, the setting of which would also have declassified Boesmansgat as the deepest flooded cave known to man.

But this is not the end of his record-breaking exploits. Diving to a depth of 278 metres with the use of a closed circuit, the popular “Starnaś” also came close to his personal depth record on CCR, which he set in 2011 – 283 metres and which was a world record at that time (currently it is 290 metres set by Will Goodman in 2014).

However, this was not without its problems, which did not allow further exploration to be carried out in a safe manner. Despite reaching the bottom and shallowing of the cave, this is still not the end of the mysteries waiting to be discovered in Viriot.

During the explorations carried out in Albania, our compatriot was supported by a team consisting of:

Anna Ciura
Sławek Paćko
Tomasz Zapiór
Paweł Zapiór
Jarek Macedoński
Michał Marek
Witek Skrodzki
Grzegorz Herman

Source: facebook.pl/dual.rebreather, rmf24.pl

About author

Tomasz Andrukajtis

Editor-in-chief of the DIVERS24 portal and magazine. Responsible for obtaining, translating and developing content. He also supervises all publications. Achived his first diving certification – P1 CMAS, in 2000. Has a degree in journalism and social communication. In the diving industry since 2008.