Sharing the View From Way, Way Down Under

“The beauty contradicts the danger.” These words appear on the first page of Jill Heinerth’s memoir, “Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver,” and they give a good sense of all that’s to come. In that opening scene, Heinerth and some of her colleagues are inside a cave within a massive iceberg — and having trouble getting out. “The most qualified cave-diving team in the world, with the experience and skills to rescue us, is right here, trapped inside,” Heinerth writes. She describes her throbbing blood vessels in the frigid water, and readers might have a similar feeling as they vicariously plunge into her adventures photographing and filming the world deep beneath our usual view for National Geographic and others. Below, Heinerth talks about overcoming fear, a mountain climber who inspired her and more.

When did you first get the idea to write this book?

It’s been a lifetime writing the book. But I’ve been writing in earnest for about two years now. I always wanted to record all this and bring it together. I guess it takes a certain point in your life to feel like you’re ready, when you want to share your collected wisdom, and when the sum of your experiences feels greater than each individual experience.

Early in my career, cave divers were labeled adrenaline junkies, out there to get ourselves killed. But I felt my work had a purpose and could contribute to humanity, and I wanted people to know the importance of that work, in terms of the science and collaboration, but also in understanding fear and challenge and survival. My journals were more observational: the details, the description of the richness of the environment. What did it smell like? What did it look like? I didn’t even know what the deeper message was until I started putting all of that together.

What’s the most surprising thing you learned while writing it?

I did not expect to be so personal. It was through coaxing and encouragement that my editor helped me to do that. Even now, as I go back and read the audiobook, it’s surprising. It was pretty scary to put that out into the world, and to send it to my family and friends: Do we remember this in the same way? Do they see me as the person I think that I am?

For a good part of my life, I felt like my dad didn’t get me. He would say: “What do you do? How do you make money?” He’s an engineer. But the day that he came to see me receive the Polar Medal from Canada, and the governor general was there and the prime minister; I remember looking at my dad, and at first he was dumbfounded. And then I looked up and this very conservative, proper man was crying his eyes out. In his 80s, I felt like he finally got me. So maybe I wrote the book for him. I’m still that little kid in kindergarten doing show and tell.

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In what way is the book you wrote different from the book you set out to write?

The book was much more technical in the beginning. I never wanted it to be a book for divers. I knew divers were going to enjoy it, but I wanted it to be a book for the masses. That was the toughest evolution through all the drafts, to find the arc of that narrative that would reach someone sitting in a cubicle or lying on the beach.

I had cards with bullet points about my life stuck all over the walls, and I must have reordered it nine ways from Sunday until it felt right. I probably wrote two books’ worth of words for the first draft, but I figured it was best to give my editor all of it and strip things away. She really encouraged me to tell the story in relationships, and how those relationships wove into my decisions in life.

I’m actually really happy with the way the technical stuff dumbed down, because people seem to understand what they need to understand. Some of the details about sexism and bullying fell away — we didn’t need all of the instances to tell that story.

Who is a creative person (not a writer) who has influenced you and your work?

Joe Simpson’s “Touching the Void” is one of the most extraordinary books I’ve ever read, and there’s a terrific documentary film about him, too. They tell the story equally well. He’s a mountain climber. He and a partner were on a very difficult climb when he fell into a crevasse, attached by rope to his partner, who was hanging on for dear life. He was pretty sure Joe was dead on the end of the rope. The partner had to make the gut-wrenching choice to cut the rope. Joe fell into this deep crevasse and was gravely injured, broken to pieces. His partner sat at the base camp for a week, grieving. Joe, meanwhile, through incredible strength and courage, managed to crawl out of this deep crevasse. I don’t know how he survived it. He did it one tiny step at a time. He made it to the base camp just as his partner had burned his clothes and was ready to give up and leave; and if he had, Joe probably would have starved to death.