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Le Grotte
di Cristina
Marine Speleology : wells, siphons, and grottos. The continuing passion:
The experiences
that have studded and accompanied my growth on my submerged
path, have taken me to the threshold of marine speleology .
 To
be completely appreciated and fully enjoyed, this magic and
mystical hidden underwater world , as in the famous Maslow
triangle, needs not only theoretic and didactic abilities,
but a cultural and environmental conscience which leads to
the open mined guiding principle which is that of humility.
Down my path towards the summit of this hypothetical
triangle, is the achievement of a psycho physical
equilibrium necessary to flank while never assaulting
nature, in one of its most forceful manifestations in the
dark and hidden meanders of the earth. Personally, I could
have never embraced cave exploration if I hadn’t experienced
deep sea immersion in its rough, multifaceted techniques and
psychology, which evidence ones own interior identity.
This path towards the abyss , is an encounter with emotions
and feelings with no holds binding.
Remembering my first confrontations down below with some one
hundred meters of water over me, I began to consider these
measures as a wall. Time in these distant dimensions runs
slow and at the same time rushes by, as you are made aware
of the absolute need of your own equilibrium and control.
Falling into the trap of
 thinking
this wall after all is only water, can be deceiving and
ambiguous , leading one to believe that problems can be
easily resolved.
Listening to our inner selves with humility and rationality
, helping us to recall our distant , liquid ancestral
origins , is necessary in penetrating this floating wall.
These first experiences guided me to the mouth of a flooded
cave where the desire to inter into the guts of the earth
overwhelmed me. My first slide into a narrow shaft under a
mountain was in Toscana, a cave called ‘Pollaccia’.
At first hesitant and preoccupied because I didn’t know what
my reaction would be to such an obstacle, I soon found my
self content in an almost privileged state at the core of
life which is this liquid lymph . My second and first
immersion alone, was in the famous siphon of the Elefante
Bianco or White Elephant in the province of Venice. I would
have run in fright if it were not that I could count on my  acquired
years of experience, where the awareness of my own limits
both internal and external were dominant. Later on, thanks
to a fellow speleologist, who helped me with some of the
fundamentals of cave exploration, I undertook the Fontanazzi
well in Valstagna , Veneto. On that particular occasion, I
experienced a state of well being that was near to
disorienting. Face to face with that submerged lesion in the
rock at the foot of the mountain, dark and disquieting, I
was overcome by both a sensation of reluctance and
attraction. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the gurgling
water. I was frightened but terribly curious about what was
there below me.
The day did arrive when there would be no time for fear,
only programming, coordination , and constructed immersions
leading to what as yet
 I
did not understand.
Curiosity is one of man’s natural instincts which drives him,
even unaware, to conquer a territory of his own, interior
and concrete. What better territory for man than the water
of his very beginning.?
What is Marine Speleology? By definition a type of immersion
that requires penetration into submerged caverns, with
narrow and prolonged trails under a rock ceiling where there
are no illusions of resolving a problem by a rapid emersion.
It is also a penetration into ones soul, into ones sub
conscience, in coherence with ones own abilities and through
complete respect for the environment which we none the less
consume.
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