At 6.03am on Saturday, Dave Shaw waded to the middle of a gentle puddle. Fifty pairs of eyes stared at the frogman in his wetsuit. Shaw waved to the people. He knew the hopes of a family were pinned on his heroic mission.
"Have a good one, Dave," police diver Inspector Theo van Eeden shouted out as he dropped into the water.
Those were the last words Shaw heard. The picture above is the last one taken of him.
Shaw was in the water on Saturday because on October 28 last year, while setting a world record at the bottom of Boesmansgat, he stumbled on the body of 20-year-old Deon Dreyer, who had blacked out during a dive there a decade ago.
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'I looked at the bottom and I only saw one light' On Saturday, Shaw dropped into the water and began his descent to the bottom of the freshwater cave 271m below. It was dark and silent in the water. The only sound he could hear was his own breathing.
At 6.13am Don Shirley, the mission's second-deepest diver and Shaw's diving buddy, climbed into the water and began his descent to 220m.
About 6.28am, Shaw arrived at the bottom of Boesmansgat on his mission to bring Dreyer's body back to the surface. If all had gone according to plan, this was supposed to have happened:
From his line, Shaw would have wandered about 20m to where he had discovered Dreyer's body embedded in silt. He was lying on his back with his hands floating.
Shaw had planned to take out a bodybag and put it over Dreyer. He would have then cut Dreyer free from the cylinders strapped to his back.
'Dave's not coming back' If he had time, he would have attached a shotline to Dreyer's diving equipment, for it to be hoisted to the top.
Shaw had five minutes at the bottom to accomplish this. Provision had been made for the deep diver to spend an extra minute - at most - at the bottom.
Any more time at the bottom and his life would have been at great risk.
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