In August 2023, Kim and I toured through the Balkans on a cave diving road trip. We had been invited by friends and former students from Romania to join their yearly cave diving trip. Travelling through four different countries, we dove some amazing sites, very different from our Mexican caves. This is a bit of a report on the trip and the caves we dove.
Molnar Janos cave in Budapest
If someone had told me you could dive in the middle of a big city I would have been sceptical. Generally when we cave dive we have to get out of the city or town. But here, in the downtown, close to the Danube River that separates the two halves of the city is the cave entrance. But you could literally get off one of the city’s trams right out front, and head in for your cave diving day!
The cave was formed from thermal waters rising below and dissolving away the limestone, unlike the caves in Mexico, where water works its way down from the surface dissolving and eroding until it hits a confining layer.
The caves were not really known until construction work uncovered the subsurface tunnels. The exploration of the cave began in the 1950s but up until the early 2000s only 400 metres of cave had been explored. This all changed in 2002 when the ‘new’ section was found and a lot more exploration was done! Now, most of the diving happens in the new section. Since the new section was discovered, more than five kilometres of tunnels have been explored, with a maximum depth of about one hundred metres. Lots of cave diving potential for divers of all overhead certification levels!
Meeting and set up
We had all met at the airport in the evening – Kim and I flew into Budapest from Mexico (but on separate flights), Bogdan had flown from Bucharest and Dragos had driven his diving van from his home in Romania with all the diving gear. It was great to catch up with the guys, we have known each other for years and in 2023 Bogdan and Dragos did Sidewinder CCR crossovers with me. We had a nice AirBNB apartment quite close to the centre, but not as close to the cave as they usually stay because it was a national holiday and the city was busy!
Pulling up at the apartment block we could hear and see the fireworks over the river, and went out and caught the end of the celebration. It was pretty cool to do a bit of a city tour at night, with the national celebrations lots of people were out and about. The city itself is pretty stunning, with the Danube River running through the middle, palaces and big old buildings on both sides of the river. We had a walk around, grabbed a nice meal and then decided to call it a night so we could be well rested for our diving day!
The following day we arrived at the entrance and managed to get a spot in the busy dive center parking lot (it was summer and school holidays!). We had a quick tour of the facilities. There is a dive center at the cave, which also does some recreational diving in the spring pool outside and provides guiding and fills for divers too. The entrance into the cave is a pretty impressive tunnel built into the hill, it was originally constructed to be a shortcut between the thermal spas and the hotel on top of the hill. During the construction, they uncovered the huge surface lake that is now used as the entry point for cave diving.
We unloaded, set up our tanks, built our rebreathers, and then moved gear into the tunnel in preparation for our dive. It’s really well organised, with space for each diver to prepare their gear before kitting up and an area for getting into drysuits to avoid blocking the tunnel down to the water. The dive platform is fairly small, but lots of ropes set on the sides for clipping off tanks. We met our guide Akos, who had been involved in some of the exploration and was super knowledgeable about the cave. He gave us a thorough briefing about the planned route, depths, temperatures and the navigation. Before diving, we ducked across the road to a little cafe to stock up on coffee and cakes. Wow! they were amazing! We also made sure to leave a ProTec sticker on the way down to the water (along with a Somos Los Cenotes one).
Diving the cave
The dive did not start well! Bogdan had an issue with his drysuit and was flooded, and one of my dry gloves was leaking water in. We decided to do a short tour, to give Bogdan time to change into dry undergarments, and return and pick him up. As for me, with the water temperatures being ‘warm’ I was happy to dive with a compromised glove. Depending on the depth and the section of cave the temperature ranges from twenty to twenty eight degrees celsius.
The cave itself looks really cool with huge vertical fissures opening up into big, wide rooms. The amount of work that has gone into putting in lines and marking it is truly impressive. Rather than have the line tied off to the rock, in many places it is anchored by secondary lines attached to bolts in the rock. This was a little strange to see at first, as it looks like many T intersections constantly, but once you are used to the different thickness of the lines the system becomes clear. The T intersections are also clearly marked with giant arrows with useful information on them. Each giant arrow has written on it the distance to the entrance and the maximum depth via that route. We went off of a shorter tour, and returned to pick up Bogdan after an hour before continuing with a bigger tour. The cave has some really interesting features – some small crystal formations in gold and black shades.
We were all diving in rebreathers in different configurations – Kim, Bogdan and I on our Sidewinder sidemount CCRs, Dragos diving his Liberty sidemounted, and Akos on his JJ. The facilities have Oxygen boosting and tank filling, making it rebreather friendly. This meant we could quite comfortably see a lot of the cave on a single day of diving!
Budapest, lots more to see!
After the dive we got out of the water, de-kitted, got out of our suits and started to pack up. Molnar Janos was a really cool place to dive. The location was so unique, the facilities top notch and really well thought out for divers, and the cave itself is really interesting. With warm water and great visibility, it is an awesome option for people wanting to cave dive for a weekend in Europe. I can’t wait to get back and see more of the cave next time, and go a bit deeper! Also, being a massive history nerd, I can’t wait to go back and spend some more time sightseeing outside of the water, and diving the Kobanya Mine, another diving option in the city, but that’s another trip! We had a long way to drive because our next stop was Isbandis Cave in Romania!
Underwater photos by Carolin Negrin