What lies beneath?

Like other natural cave explorers, Bernil Gastardo goes into a cave and tries to return to the surface unhurt.

The comparison, however, stops there.

Gastardo is a different breed of cave explorer – he dives underwater caves – and thrives in challenges that lay beneath.

The kind of diving that Gastardo likes to do is not for everyone. In other words, don't go cave diving if you are not trained for it.

Gastardo's latest exploit was in Pawod Cave in Bohol where he completed his cave diving course under the direction of Paul Nielsen.

Gastardo, Scott Livingston (owner of Scotty's Dive Center), and Nielsen penetrated the tunnels or chambers of Pawod Cave one afternoon in July of this year.

"One of the dangers associated with diving in this overhead environment is that the bottom is blanketed with thick, muddy silt. Anybody untrained in maintaining perfect buoyancy and proper line lying is assured of a disastrous outcome once he has reduced the clear visibility to zero with a careless sweep of his fin or hand. Without a guideline and unable to return to the exit point, the unlucky diver will frantically move around in circles until his gas is consumed. With lungs burning for air and clawing desperately at the cave ceiling in his final attempt to survive, the diver soon succumbs to the dark and cold embrace of the cave.

"After which, the locals would say that the diver was victimized by the 'Mantaga,' a freshwater octopus that supposedly lives inside the cave." Gastardo explained.

Dr. Alfonso Amores discovered Pawod Cave some years ago. The doctor brought Gastardo to the cave and encouraged him to take a formal cave diving course so they could dive together.

Amores was the first to dive and explore Pawod Cave and laid a line around the cave's main chamber.

When Gastardo and his buddies arrived at Pawod Cave, children who were playing near the cave's mouth asked, "Are you looking for? Japanese gold, Sir?"

Not today.

With the equipment they carried, the divers couldn't afford extra pounds.

For this dive, Gastardo and his buddies carried three powerful underwater lights or High Intensity Discharge (HID). They each had twin 11-liter tanks, two spools, on top of directional markers, extra mask, line cutters and scissors.

Gastardo describes the entrance to the cave, "In Pawod Cave, the distance from the entrance that goes through the main chamber then to the entrance of another tunnel is 40m/ 120 ft; maximum depth is 6m/ 18ft. The tunnel goes deeper to a depth of 18m/ 60ft with a length of 30m/ 100ft. That's a total of 70m/ 230ft in length."

The three divers found clear water inside the cave's chamber. But as they went deeper, total darkness enveloped them. With the help of their powerful lights, they reached a chamber that was "covered with slabs of limestone rocks that looked like they were once part of a ceiling."

Continuing their adventure, the divers reached what Gastardo refers to as "Paul's Peril."

"There was an area that left me chest deep in mud. My manifold was scraping the ceiling and each exhalation brought down so much particulate. Using my left hand, I slowly clawed my way forward. That action together with my fining and breathing created a total whiteout. Visibility turned to a finger length. All I could see was the white line on the mud floor that leads farther into the cave," recalled Bernil.

He eventually got out of that portion of the cave and found himself in a bigger area that was 12 meters deep. As he saw Paul's flickering light ahead, he followed onwards and saw a giant clam shell.

"How many million of years has this thing been lying here?" was the question that ran through Bernil's mind. According to Bernil, he was "awed by it all" after feeling what other explorers might have felt when the discovered something only a few others had ever seen.

He continued his journey inside "Paul's Peril" and found another chamber with deep blue clear, clean water at about 18 meters. He took off his regulator and tasted the water - it was fresh.

The way out of the cave was creepy, to say the least. The mud the divers disturbed during their exploration enveloped the cave in a thick mantle of darkness.

"Then I came upon an area where the bottom sharply angles up. I got stuck. I moved left - scraped my manifold. I moved right - ouch, bumped my head on the ceiling," said Bernil.

To add more trouble to what was developing into a testy situation, Bernil's $800 light went off!

"Good thing that the video light was still on. But then the monkeys in my head started chattering: You're stuck, you're going to die, you can't get out now!"

Bernil did what a good diver has been trained to do that very instance – stop, think and act.     

"So I stopped, took a slow deep breath, paused, exhaled very slowly and willed myself to relax. Then I slowly clawed my way out."

"At the end of it, I saw two lights. It was Paul and Scott waiting for me at the cave's main chamber. We gave each other the OK sign, shook hands and then we swam out to daylight."

When asked why he does it, Bernil said, "There are still places left in the world that haven’t been explored by man yet. Cave diving affords one to discover areas where no one has been to before. The risks involved are not taken lightly, hence the requirement for meticulous and rigid training coupled with specialized equipment to ensure survival in a dark, confined, overhead, underwater environment."

"It is estimated that worldwide, only 1 percent of divers actually want or proceed to become cave divers. That leaves a lot of room for us to move around without bumping into anyone," he adds.

When not out exploring a cave, Bernil manages the dive operations of Scotty's Dive Centre at Shangrila Resort and Spa in Punta Engano, Mactan. He is a DSAT technical instructor with a DSAT Trimix, IANTD technical cave and IANTD technical wreck certification. As a recreational diver, he holds a PADI Instructor Development Course Staff (IDC-S) rating.

(NOTE: Raffy Osumo is a teaching-status PADI instructor holding the Master Scuba Diver Trainer, MSDT, rating.)