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Australian technical diver, underwater photographer, novelist, maritime archaeologist, and cave explorer Agnes Milowka was born on December 23, 1981, and she passed away on February 27, 2011. She became well-known throughout the world for her ability to delve deeper than earlier explorers into cave systems in Australia and Florida, as well as for her work as a diving and marine archaeology author and public speaker. While diving in a restricted area, she passed away at the age of 29, after running out of air.
Milowka, who was born in Częstochowa, Poland, and her parents relocated to Melbourne when she was a little child. She attended Caulfield Grammar School from 1994 to 1999. She was a champion school rower, house captain, and a finalist for the statewide VCE achiever award at the school. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, History, and Australian Studies from the University of Melbourne (2005), where she served as president of the Melbourne University Underwater Club, a Bachelor of Business, Marketing, and Event Management from Victoria University (2008), and a Maritime Archaeology degree from Flinders University (2007).
She engaged in the archaeological investigation of historic shipwreck sites during her summer 2007 internship with LAMP (Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program), the research division of the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum, in St. Augustine, Florida. She would learn about Florida diving through this work and eventually venture into vast cave systems. She was involved in a number of qualitative underwater archeological research projects while in school, both as a researcher and as a diver.
She and James Arundale explored the Elk River streamway cave system by an additional 1,400 meters (4,600 feet) in 2009 as part of a project organized by the Victorian Speleological Association. This may become the longest continuous stream passage in Victoria, Australia. She set the record for the longest Australian female cave dive in 2009 when she reached the halfway point of Craig Challen’s 2008 line during an expedition at Cocklebiddy. For the Discovery Channel Japan movie “Water’s Journey” produced by TV Asahi & Karst Productions in 2008, she served as an underwater grip. (sets up and operates equipment for underwater filming) As an underwater grip, she also participated in the December 2008 National Geographic Nova TV Special voyage to the Bahamas’ Blue Holes.
In the 2011 James Cameron-produced feature film Sanctum, she served as a stunt double for two female characters and instructed the actors in cave diving. She received a nomination as a Dive Rite Ambassador in 2011. She worked as a dive supervisor on the short film BIRTH for the TRIMÄPEE fashion line, which was one of her final jobs. In her honour, the film has been dedicated.
After leaving a diving group to investigate a tight limitation that required travelling alone, Agnes ran out of oxygen and passed away in February 2011 in the Tank Cave in Tantanoola in the southeast of South Australia.
Mummu Media has created the “Agnes Milowka Memorial Environmental Science Award” for disadvantaged schools studying science, marine studies, or exploration in honour of Milowka’s accomplishments and legacy. Agnes Milowka won the Exploration Award posthumously in May 2011 in honour of her exceptional and committed contribution to the USA’s National Speleological Society Cave Diving Section. The 2011 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) honoured her name in remembrance; the alliance spacecraft is called A.W.S. Milowka in the well-known sci-fi webcomic book Crimson Dark.
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