Gomes is a renowned cave diver and holds the official current (2012) Guinness World Record for the deepest cave dive, done in Boesmansgat cave (South Africa), to a depth of 927 feet (282.6 m), in 1996.
The cave is located at an altitude of 5000 feet (1550 m) above sea level, which resulted in Nuno having to decompress for an equivalent sea level dive of 1112 feet (339 m) to prevent decompression sickness ("the bends"). The total dive time was 12 hours and 15 minutes, while the descent took 15 minutes.