Artur Kozlowski – diver

When I heard first time the news I didn't know that I actually met Artur few times when I was diving with Ocean Diver in Dun Laoghaire. But today's e-mail from them confirms the sad news.  For Artur I was probably one of many divers but he was a person hard to forget. Easy going, friendly, always ready to give advice. It's a strange feeling when somebody like him is gone …

Below e-mail from Ocean Divers:

“I am sitting facing the blank screen of a computer and trying to get my mind focused on what to say for this weeks Oceandivers email newsletter. Normally this task is one of the more enjoyable regular duties that need to be completed each week but today it's very different. The Tuesday breaking news reported that a Polish diver was missing in an underwater cave in the Gort area of Co Galway. Later that day, it was confirmed that the diver was Artur Kozlowski and although we all hoped and prayed that he would be found alive, search teams located his body by Tuesday evening deep in the cave network.

Brian and I have known Artur since he first came to Ireland in 2006 when he began diving with us and quickly became a regular on many of our boat trips and weekends away. Right from the beginning, it was obvious that Artur was not going to be an average diver, highly intelligent with a wicked sense of humour he was super fit and had a natural grace in the water. From the earliest days, he was fascinated with cave diving and it wasn’t long before he had made the transition from recreational scuba into Tec and Advanced cave diving with extensive training in the UK and Red Sea. In the intervening years, Artur carried out a systematic exploration of the labyrinth of underwater cave systems to be found in Mayo, Galway and Clare and in 2008 he recorded the deepest cave dive anywhere in Ireland or Britain by diving to 103 meters in the Pollatomary cave in Co Mayo.

In addition to his many expeditions, Artur was always willing to help with our training courses and as a PADI Instructor, he was a highly respected member of the Oceandivers Crew. Living in Shankill, I would frequently give him a lift home following our pool training sessions in Glenalbyn pool on a Wednesday evening. With my self confessed cave phobia, these journeys became a series of “Bedtime Horror Stories” as he would describe many of the nightmare style passageways that he was currently exploring. Despite my own reservations, Artur was like nobody I have ever known, he possessed that unique fire for exploration that burned within him and spurred him on when any normal mortal would have shrunk away whimpering. I can’t believe that he is gone yet at the same time I could never have imagined him as an old man. Artur, you will be sorely missed by all your numerous friends at Oceandivers!

Willie Siddall

“Exploration is an obsession, once you taste it nothing else will taste remotely as good. It will give you all you ever wanted: self-fulfillment, the wildest childhood's dreams come true, people's respect, illusion of grandeur and the equally illusive promise of eternal life but it's a jealous and possessive bitch and if you don't keep it on a tight rein it will destroy everyone around you...”

Artur Kozlowski June 2011