Boesmansgat (or Bushmansgat), also known in English as "Bushman's Hole", is a deep submerged freshwater cave (or sinkhole) in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, which has been dived to a depth of 282.6 m. Boesmansgat was believed to have first been explored by amateur diver Mike Rathbourne, in 1977. The greatest depth attained was by Nuno Gomes in 1996, diving to a depth of 282.6 m. Its altitude of over 1500 m makes this a particularly challenging dive, requiring a decompression schedule equivalent for a dive to 339 m at sea level. Gomes' dive was a close call, as he got stuck in the mud on the bottom of Bushman's Hole for two minutes before escaping. On 24 November 2004, Verna van Schaik set the Guinness Woman's World Record for the deepest dive by diving down to a depth of 221 m. In October 2022 Karen van den Oever broke her own Guinness World Record as the world’s deepest diving woman when she descended to 246.65 m using open-circuit equipment.

Deaths

In literature

In Mo Hayder's novel Ritual (2008), the death of the parents of one of the protagonists while diving in Bushman's Hole is an important plot device.

In media

The 2005 attempt to recover Deon Dreyer's body that led to the death of Dave Shaw is the subject of the 2020 documentary Dave Not Coming Back.