Every time I hear about people getting lost and even dying in caves, a chill runs down my spine. And I recall my brief encounters with cave exploration.

When I was in college, I took a scuba diving class as one of my physical education courses. This course all happened in an indoor, heated Olympic-sized pool. There were no sharks, no barracudas and no caves.

One day when I went to class, I noticed things shaped liked large traffic cones on the bottom of the pool. And we were told that they simulated cave openings. They were tight squeezes and we were told how to take off our air tanks, move through the opening and pull our tanks in after us.

“Say whattttt?”

Obviously this was a hypothetical situation — at least for me. What I mean is, If you couldn’t turn a Mack truck around in it, this old boy wasn’t going in it. No siree Bob.

I made an “A” in the course. And I haven’t had a scuba tank on my back since.

Exploring underwater caves is right up there with bungi jumping and wing walking on that list of things I won’t get around to on this side of the Great Divide. On the other side, I don’t know what they do for recreation.

But I had some experience exploring dryland caves. We had a cave near Whigham where I grew up that I went into three times. This was not a public kind of cave where you just walk into an opening and a guide shows you all the stalactites and bat holes along lighted corridors.

This cave was at the bottom of a deep hole. You had to climb down a rope into this pit. At the bottom of the pit, the cave went back under a farmer’s field. That was the first time I had ever been under a corn patch.

My first trip there was a seventh-grade field trip. And the second trip came several years later when I was home from college and my cousin wanted me to take him into this cave.

Now on your first trip, you learn things. You think you’ve seen dark until you go deep into a non-commercialized cave. You can’t buy paint that black. And so on the second trip, we had four flashlights and so many batteries, the weight of them was about to pull my pants off.

I also had a mile of kite string and a sack oak leaves. We tacked them to the walls after each turn. The points of the leaves pointed back to the opening. Oh yes, we had some candles, too. And enough kitchen matches to supply a village of Eskimos for six months. Helen Keller could have led us out of there.

I went into that cave one more time after that to take another friend. And I haven’t been back since. That last trip was nearly 35 years ago. The first trip was 43 years ago.

I decided after that last trip that I would not make a good cave explorer. I took too much stuff with me, all of which could take me back to the opening but none of which could prevent a cave-in.

On the second trip into that cave, some geology students from the University of Miami showed up just before we came out. We made enough noise to let them know we were up ahead. You don’t want to surprise anyone in a cave because you could bump your head.

When we finally met them, they introduced themselves. That was the only time I’ve ever met anyone in a cave. I shone my flashlight on each one. There were five guys and one girl. I shone my light again just to make sure what I had seen because a couple of the guys had long hair. I was correct.

I didn’t know any girls that brave. I mean I knew some girls who would go into caves, but not one that would go in there with five boys. I did know one who would go out with five boys, however.

I would like to think it was wisdom and not fear that has kept me out of caves since then. But if I’m wrong on that point, I take solace in knowing that either one will work.

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Obsever, 985-4545. E-mail: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com).