FRIDAY – JUNE 29, 2018
Ben Reymenants arrived at Chamber 3, now the forward base for the search, only to face a grim sight. Where a dive point should have been, there was nothing but a small, muddy puddle with a swirling vortex at its center. Undeterred by the treacherous conditions and the Navy SEALs’ lack of cave-diving expertise, he resolved to dive alone.
Inside the cave was pure chaos— powerful currents, and zero visibility. Reymenants got stuck repeatedly, tangled in cables and fire hoses snaking through the water. After narrowly escaping these deadly traps multiple times, he had no choice but to abort the mission.
Rick Stanton and John Volanthen re-entered the cave to assess the conditions but found higher water levels and stronger currents than the day before, making further progress impossible, The Brits canceled their dive.
“The current was even stronger than the previous day and we felt that diving progress would have been virtually impossible beyond chamber 3 judging from what we had observed on Thursday whilst we conducted the rescue.” – Rick Stanton
On his way back from his dive, Reymenants ran into Stanton and Volanthen at the V-shaped passage, and they agreed to report to Thai authorities that diving was not possible that day.
For Reymenants, a glimmer of hope emerged with the arrival of Maksym Polejaka at the rescue site. With Polejaka, whom Reymenants had personally trained in cave diving for years, Reymenants had a skilled and reliable partner.
(Ben Reymenants and Maksym Polejaka)
However, Reymenants, drawing from his first dive experience, understood that he needed a much thicker rope than his 1mm nylon cave line to withstand the cave’s fierce currents. Therefore, he borrowed a sample rope from John Volanthen—though not without some resistance from him—to inform the Thai Navy SEALs.
(Ruengrit Changkwanyuen, Ben Reymenants and Maksym Polejaka with John Volanthen’s rope)
Unlike Reymenants, the Brits lost hope as Unsworth’s 24-hour countdown for the children’s survival expired. Convinced that the impossible diving conditions would not improve and believing the boys could not have survived longer then 5-6 days in the cave, they began to lose faith and make plans to retreat.
“The UK dive teams’ assessment is that due to the flow of the water, continued search operations are not warranted, and the focus should shift to recovery. They stated they would not be conducting any more diving operations and would be departing the following day.” – Jeremiah Lumbaca/Lt. Col., U.S. Army – Ph.D. Professor