'People think that I'm fearless but I'm not': Canadian cave diver reflects on career in new memoir
Before Jill Heinerth became an explorer, adventurer and pre-eminent diver, she had a career in graphic design
Jill Heinerth says she knows some people might find the thought of swimming inside a cave underwater "the stuff of claustrophobic nightmares." But for her, it's like "swimming through the veins of Mother Earth."
The pre-eminent Canadian cave diver, explorer and adventurer has written her first book, a memoir of her life diving into some of the most remote, untouched corners of the earth.
She started her career, rather unconventionally, in advertising and graphic design while teaching scuba classes on evenings and weekends.
"I realized I wanted to turn that around and be creative underwater," Heinerth told host Gloria Macarenko on CBC's On The Coast.
She started volunteering on different projects which led her to opportunities to collaborate with scientists and engineers from National Geographic and other educational institutions.
A lot of her work has helped with research on the Earth's past climate.
Heinerth has swum into icebergs in Antarctica, in deep caves underneath the Sahara desert, and off the coast of British Columbia alongside sea lions. She says her favourite caving spot is in Abaco in the Bahamas.
"There's a cave in Abaco you enter through a kind of nondescript pond in the middle of a forest. It's a beautiful pine forest and it's a rather muddy pond and most people wouldn't have given it a second glance."
"But if you squeeze down through this entrance you enter a vast room the size of a house and you pierce through the fresh water, through a layer that leads you into salt water and then the saltwater is crystal blue clear," she recounted.
"And in that environment you're swimming like through a crystal chandelier of stalagmites and stalactites, gorgeous crystals, some are even sort of illuminated red with dust that's come all the way from the Sahara Desert."
"It's beautiful."
Heinerth says even after 30 years of diving experience, she still gets scared all the time.
"People think that I'm fearless but I'm not," she said.
"I want to dive with people that are also scared because it means we both care about the outcomes and understand the risks that we're taking on."
Listen to the interview with Heinerth on CBC's On The Coast:
With files from On The Coast