Dragon's Breath Cave is a flooded karst cave located in the

Otjozondjupa Region Otjozondjupa is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia. Its capital is Otjiwarongo. The region further contains the municipalities of Okahandja and Grootfontein and the towns Okakarara and Otavi. , Otjozondjupa had 97,945 registered voters. Geogr ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

on private land, not accessible to the general public. The cave was discovered by Roger Ellis during a caving expedition to the area in 1986. It is named for the warm moist air that rises from its entrance when barometric pressure drops, which condenses to form a mist suggestive of the breath of a dragon. The cave contains the world's largest known non- subglacial

underground lake An underground lake or subterranean lake is a lake underneath the surface of the Earth. Most naturally occurring underground lakes are found in areas of karst topography, where limestone or other soluble rock has been weathered away, leaving a ca ...

, with an area of almost . The water surface of the lake is located around below the land surface at the cave mouth. Its total depth is . Although it has been reported that the rare fish species, '' Clarias cavernicola'', lives in the lake in the Dragon's Breath Cave, this is an error. It is only known from the nearby Aigamas Cave. Sketch of Dragons Breath Hole 1986

Martyn Farr records in his book "The Darkness Beckons" the exploration of the cave by a team of divers and cavers led by Roger Ellis and Charles Maxwell of the South African Spelaeological Association a year after the cave was identified in 1986 by cavers as being of significant size.

Extent and dimensions

The entrance to the cave is a near vertical shaft in a dolomite outcropping at the foot of a low hill, and is quite narrow in places. Access is by rope to the surface of the lake. The water surface was measured at 59 metres below land surface datum at the cave mouth. The deepest point is 264 m below datum at a depth of 205 m by multibeam sonar measurement from the Sunfish underwater survey drone. The cave above the water was surveyed by laser. As of 2015 the deepest point reached by divers was 132 m. There is a small beach at the south end of the lake, quite far from the entry shaft, which is directly above the water at some distance from the shore. The cave slopes downward from the beach to the deepest point at about 40 to 45 degrees at the north end of the cave. The cave is wide and fairly straight, with the lake surface being visible from a large part of the flooded volume. Water depth below the entrance is about 60 m. The tunnel tapers down from about wide and almost high.

Exploration and survey dives

* 2019 survey expedition. *June 2024 diving photographic expedition.

References

External links

Discovery Channel: Video: Dragon's Breath Cave
* (af
Nuwe duikrekord opgestel
("New dive record set", Republikein, 13 June 2012. URL accessed on 20 October 2015. * (af
Dieper die aarde se maag in
("Deeper into the bowels of the earth"), Republikein, 13 July 2012. URL accessed on 20 October 2015.
Stone Aerospace survey visualisation of the Dragon's Breath cave
{{coord, 19, 28, 05, S, 17, 47, 08, E, region:NA_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title Underground lakes Caves of Namibia Lakes of Namibia Underwater diving sites Cave diving

Extent and dimensions

Exploration and survey dives

See also

References

External links