Death in the dark deep
Jonathan Ancer revisits the fatal cave dive that shocked the world 16 years ago, a tragedy that still haunts him
10 January 2021 - 00:00
I drove to the top of a hill on the outskirts of Danielskuil, a tiny middle-of-nowhere town in the Northern Cape. I’d been told that if the wind blew in a certain way there may be cellphone reception at the top of the hill. I was in luck. I had two bars. I phoned the newspaper I was working for and told the news editor that the impossible had happened: Dave Shaw, the diver who was making a daring attempt to recover the body of Deon Dreyer from the bottom of Boesman’s Cave, had failed to resurface...
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