A Polish cave diver has descended further into an underwater cave than anyone before him. Bartłomiej Pitala reached 338 metres inside Matka Vrelo, a flooded cave system near Skopje in North Macedonia, beating the previous cave diving record of 312m set by France's Xavier Méniscus in 2024 — and even edging past the deepest open-water scuba dive ever recorded, Ahmed Gabr's 332.35m in the Red Sea back in 2014.
The dive, on 16 October, was the culmination of a joint expedition between Pitala's BAD Exploration Team and local organisation Club Vrelo. Preparation was methodical: four preliminary dives to 150m, 190m, 240m and 290m fine-tuned decompression plans and tested for high pressure nervous syndrome, the tremors and dizziness that helium gas under extreme pressure can cause. More than 25 emergency gas cylinders were staged inside the cave, seven support divers stood ready, and an underwater habitat at 8m offered a warm fallback in case his drysuit failed. Even North Macedonia's president, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, lent honorary patronage, helping secure a helicopter on standby and a hyperbaric chamber in Skopje.
Pitala dived on twin Liberty closed-circuit rebreathers, propelled by Seacraft Ghost DPVs. He passed 212m in under five minutes, then found an almost vertical passage still dropping. Choosing a dark opening in a vast chamber within seconds, he passed 300m — making Matka Vrelo just the second underwater cave ever explored beyond that depth — and kept going to 338m, where he deliberately turned back with the passage still descending. He reported no HPNS effects at all.
The return took far longer than the descent: over eight hours of decompression, with a deliberately slower ascent from 210m inspired by other record-holders like Gigi Casati and Méniscus. The cautious approach added roughly ninety minutes but paid off — he surfaced with no decompression problems and walked out of the water unaided, without needing the habitat. He had also beaten his own 2025 record at the site by 51m.
For divers and adventure travellers, the story puts Matka Vrelo firmly on the map. It's now officially the deepest known underwater cave explored by a human, and the team is preparing footage, survey maps and a 3D visualisation of the newly discovered passages. Local officials hope the record will draw attention to the country's cave systems and wider heritage — and for recreational divers, the Matka Canyon area near Skopje already offers accessible diving and kayaking in a dramatically scenic setting.
Pitala himself sounds far from finished. The cave, he notes, is still going down.
Story via Dive Magazine.
