Day 7 – rEvo Rebreather and recreational dive equipment under the ice

February 20, 2017

All team members are getting used to the schedule: 7:30am meeting and packing up the equipment – 8:00am breakfast – 8:30am loading the trucks and leaving. Everything is a routine.

As already indicated yesterday we went back to Kohboy. Our the last day on the north tip of Olkhon. As planned yesterday, we cut a new hole in the ice close to our famous crack in order to see more new formations.

Again there were thick ice layers everywhere and just after diving a few meters the computer showed 0°C in 7m deep water. Unbelievable!

Like yesterday we focusd on the rEvo unit and we needed to run various routines and programs, finding out at the end that the unit worked just perfectly!

Andreas Kron, our SSI International Training Director and Expedition Leader, was full of positive words for the unit. Looks like the rEvo is an ideal choice for all kinds of diving.

All team members on open circuit units got a bit jealous as Andi was raving about his positive feelings, especially on breathing the warm air in the rebreather unit which helps a lot to reduce the cool down process of your body while diving in such an extreme environment.

Another focus was on recreational equipment and we had simulated a couple of extreme conditions like breathing with the main and octopus stage at the same time with heavy breathing frequency (> 25 breath/min) in order to learn how the equipment will perform. All regulators and BCD’s did well again but we also found out the limits of some of the configurations - it was a good experience for future developments.

Since our program became kind of 'normal' for everybody, we also started to become a bit more relaxed and the work also started to be fun and not just a serious job.

We are getting more and more used to our container camp as we carry it everyday on a sledge with us and I am sure we will miss these simple but comfortable 'ice houses' on our dives when we are back home.

Besides the changing room container, today we also carried another container with us that can be used as a sauna, called "сауна" in Russian. Some have already used it today and we want to bring it again tomorrow. Lets see!

When it comes to diving, tomorrow will be our last day under the ice. We want to have 'clear ice' again without cracks and do some 'fun' diving and photo-shooting to wrap up our expedition.

We are sure our 'Ice Captains' with their 4x4 UAZ vehicles will find us the perfect spot just like they did before…

So see you again tomorrow! Good night…