Annals Of Achievement–Half Woman/Half Fish: South African Verna Van Schaik is one hell of a scuba diver. Yesterday she dove to 221 meters (that’s 725 feet for all you metric-challenged readers), in a deep, dark cave at North Cape, South Africa. That’s an all-time depth record for a woman, and it took Van Schaik just 12 minutes to get to that depth. Then came the hard part–a five hour and twenty seven minute ascent, which required 40 separate decompression stops. Read Verna’s dive diary here. There’s also a great photo gallery. Cave diving. I can’t see it, because I’ve never had a thing for Gollum. But there’s always someone…

Verna As Venus: “You know. It just occurred to me. This is a really, really weird sport…”