Blue Lake – A Day Off!

The next two days were much more low key as we had a day of shallow diving trying to take some photographs with a day off.

Waiting for a break in the traffic on the way to a phone signal

It gave everyone the time to catch up on the outside world, although a mobile internet connection involved driving quite a few kilometres until we found somewhere a little further from the mountains where we could pick up a signal.

Not all the photographs were underwater. The area of Kabardino-Balkaria in the Caucasus mountains in which we were diving is very beautiful. In the past foreign tourism to this region has been frowned upon due to it’s close proximity with politically unstable areas but in the summer time it can get very busy with tourists from within Russia visiting the mountains and the natural thermal spas.

Even in winter there are tourists turing up to look at the lake

Kit cleaning, more TV crews wanting interviews and gas mixing still kept everyone very busy.

The beautiful Caucasus Mountains

Blue Lake Project – Make mine a double!

Yet another camera crew and interview - I just can't get used this.

With all the kit prepared it was time to head even deeper. In the grand scheme of diving these are nowhere near to the depths some divers have achieved but the difference here is I am planning to do as much bottom time as possible and cover as much ground as I can underwater looking for the water source.

Before I kit up I have a final written check list to go through to make sure everything is ready, including analysing my gasses again just to make sure (thank you ANALOX)

Whilst I am getting in to my dry suit, which also needs the help of a ‘dresser’ (it’s not that I am incapable, but there are wires everywhere inside the dry suit which need to be plugged in to the corresponding wires from the heated undersuit/heated gloves/heated vest) and being filmed at the same time of course, some of the support team are checking the surface supplied O2 and power supply to the habitat.

Now the process needs to come to a halt again as there is another TV station wanting to interview me!

Once that is done I can continue getting in to my dry suit and at last in to my rebreather for a final check and pre-breathe before clambering in to the water. Conscious of the fact that there are a lot of cameras pointing at me and the whole team we decide to take our time and let them get the shots they want.

Once the habitat has been set up with surface supplied O2, a full face mask and comms set and the surface supplied power I can start to descend.

A descent line had been dropped over on the side of the lake so I scootered on the surface and dropped down the line to about 6 metres for some final checks before continuing the descent. A couple of the support divers have already descended a few minutes before me and are waiting at 9 metres or so to then follow me down to 30 metres to make sure that everything is going OK before I leave them and drop in to the darkness.

Once I got to 150 metres I stopped and swam away from the line a short distance to check visibility. I had set a couple of very powerful strobes on to the line so that I would be able to find the line at the end of my planned bottom time and ascend back up the line to make it easy for the support divers to find me. I also had a powerful strobe attached to me for the same reason. However after less than 5 metres of swimming I had still not reached the wall of the lake where it slopes away from vertical and forms an overhead environment and, turning, I could not see the strobes. I swam back to the line on a compass heading and decided that the best way to explore would be to lay a line from the down line.

Once I had attached my line I scootered in the direction of the wall, made another tie-off then turned to scooter along the wall at between 150 – 165 metres looking for any signs of an opening. I laid line whilst scootering to make the best progress but whilst the ‘roof’ went from being a steep over hang to a definite flat roof I could not see any obvious openings and I had run out of time. With no obvious further tie-off points visible I swam back to my first tie-off, making the line up back on to the reel, eventually arriving at the point where I turned and swam mid-water back to the ascent line.

The ascent went without a hitch and I met the first team of support dives at 90 metres to go through the process of swapping out bailout cylinders for more appropriate gasses and taking on a spare canister battery as a back-up for the heating systems until I arrived at 9 metres or so and could plug-in to the surface power.

Once I finally make it to the habitat it is time, with some help from the support team, to clamber inside and settle down.

After a number of test runs the habitat is now quite comfortable although not the most spacious I have used but once inside and organised the support team start to make my life a little more pleasant.

First up is usually some hot tea. Flushing the habitat with clean gas at certain intervals keeps the habitat ‘air’ clean enough to come off the rebreather and have some food or drinks breaks. Hot tea and a rather sickly sweet ‘condensed milk protein in a toothpaste tube’ is the standard menu.

An easier way is to combine drinking or eating with an air-break from the high PO2 decompression. It is sometimes a little simpler process to go from an OC regulator to eating or drinking and back again than from and back to the rebreather, although how warm I feel affects this decision as staying on CCR really does make a thermal difference.

The habitat under construction long before it hit the water

After about 30 – 40 minutes, providing I have not flushed the habitat, the temperature inside will be creeping up towards double figures (compared to the 7 degrees C water) which also helps a lot.

After some time I was handed a note asking me if I would like a glass of wine! Most of the support team had heard the story of the red wine delivered to me whilst decompressing in a habitat in a cave in France (it was France after all).

Just for fun I wrote back that it sounded like an excellent idea.

Some minutes later I was handed a water bottle with what appeared to be a pale gold liquid in it. I guessed someone had found some local ‘home-made’ wine and that was why it was an odd colour. To keep in the spirit (no pun intended) of the occasion I decided to have just the smallest sip. (It should be noted that when I sent a message back saying “Yes. why not” there was, apparently, quite sigh of relief as the surface team realised that everything must be going well and that I was feeling fine).

So I took a tiny sip and then my mouth caught fire. Lost in translation (how I don’t know as all the notes to and from the habitat had been in Russian) was the message that the support team were to deliver cognac, not red wine! To say that I was surprised is an understatement. I did not even know it was brandy until I was told once I hit the surface. At least everyone (especially me) was smiling. Remember kids – don’t try this at home!

All in all it was a long but very enjoyable and very successful dive.

 

Blue Lake Project – Support Team Arrive

The good news today was that the remaining divers who would complete the support team have all arrived on site.

They spent most of the day getting their own equipment assembled which was frustrating for the photographers who wanted to get some shots of the support divers’ training session and we were slowly loosing daylight, but we did get them in the water in time. I used one of the rebreathers kindly lent to me by AP Diving this time, testing it as a back-up rebreather followed by a final (and very successful) check inside the habitat. The training session with the support divers and the scenarios and exercises we practiced were completed and it all went well so it decided it was time for an earlier-than-has-been-the-norm evening meal and no more playing with equipment.

Up until now bedtime was typically beyond midnight in an effort to get everything ready on time. As with almost all expeditions no matter how much time you allocate to a particular task, everything seems to take longer than you hoped but we are close to being back on schedule and everything is ready for the next stage of the project. 

Over the coming days I hope to be able to put together a series of deeper dives and to start looking for signs that will tell us where all this water is coming from and whether there might even be a cave system deep in the lake.

One of the difficulties of course is the visibility in the deeper sections of the lake, where the massively overhanging walls cut out all of what small amount of ambient light there might be so we have marked out sections on the ROV surveys and will explore each section in turn if we have time.

 The depth of the lake and the fact that I will need to return to a line so that the support divers have no difficulties in locating me will all add up to quite long bottom times, which at the depths we are exploring adds up to a significant amount of decompression.

The habitat is one way of making the decompression safer (and of course more comfortable) but safety is our main concern. The habitat allows a diver to get out of the water completely and if necessary even change dry suits and under suits. The diver inside can eat, drink and even talk to the surface (my bad Russian through a communications unit should make them all laugh).

A cold morning for support diver training

Should anything go wrong (and we are of course are planning for it not to) we have a chamber on stand-by and an ambulance with police escort already on site should it be needed.

 

 

Blue Lake Project – First Deep Dive

Getting ready to descend

Time for a deeper dive.

With the power supply now in to the habitat and surface supplied O2 ready I swam down a slope that leads away from the dive centre and then dropped over the edge of a vertical wall and continued descending. After a few minutes heading deeper the wall became noticeably undercut and so now I needed to swim in order to keep the wall as a visual reference..

I put the breaks on at 121m and had a short 12 – 15 minute swim around to get my bearings before it was time to leave and meet the support divers who were due to be waiting for me at the top of the wall.

Once met by the support divers we exchanged some cylinders and I was escorted back to the habitat where mains power was plugged in, my remaining bailout cylinders were removed and I entered the habitat for the last hour or so of decompression.

During the dive one 20Ah battery is used to keep the heated vest warm and then once at 9m or so the mains power can be connected to the full heated suit and heated gloves. After a short time getting nice and cosy I can then shut down the battery to the vest and leave that as a reserve in case the heated undersuit stops working for some reason.

Then it was time to settle into the habitat to get comfortable and finish decompressing. Apart from obvious comfort advantages and increase in warmth (with a diver inside, in one hour the air temperature in the habitat will easily be 4 degrees centigrade above the outside 7 degrees of the water).

Once decompression has been completed the habitat support divers go through the routine of unplugging me form various wires and making sure it is safe to exit. Then it’s time to exit the habitat and slowly head to the surface.

Another successful dive and everyone keen to hear what it is like in the deeper parts of the lake.

Blue Lake Project

Yet more kit arrives from Moscow

A long day preparing a lot of additional equipment and ironing out a few small problems from the previous dive. It was also a chance to check on the progress of the habitat.

We also had the ‘truck’ arrive from Moscow with the rest of the equipment including the surface supplied O2 (and a very long ‘long hose’), the full face masks, underwater communications system and the surface power unit.

The power unit has been specially made by Santi for this project and has been designed to provide power for the heated undersuit, heated vest and heated gloves when I reach the habitat. The unit takes it’s power straight from the mains supply and has two back up batteries in case there is a mains power failure.

Getting this assembled and ready for a test dive took the best part of the day.

I did eventually get in the water for a short dive to make sure the dry suit and heated suit was fully functional

We are actually using ‘Habitat 2′ as the first model suffered from some construction quality problems and we didn’t think it safe enough to use. So, Igor, our very willing underwater engineer, is spending a great number of hours underwater happily getting everything positioned correctly, ready and safe to use.

The evening was spent having briefings from the scientists and them gathering information from the dives I had already done along with some sketches I had made for them of the underwater environment, particularly the rock formations and sedimentary layers.

Then back to the dive centre for long night of gas mixing and kit checking prior to the first of the deeper dives the next day.

Blue Lake Project

Having finally arrived back in the UK I thought I would pick up the story where I left off………

Blue Lake Project

I expected the first day on site to be just getting equipment unpacked, assembled and if all went well getting under water to test everything was still working after such a long trip.

The Blue Lake

This was partly true but I had not realised the extent to which this project has generated interest, both within the region in which the lake is situated and across Russia.

So, assembling and testing rebreathers was an oft repeated exercise whilst a national television station news crew filmed me. OK, that was not so bad but when the organisers told me the news team wanted an interview I have to admit I was a little nervous. It was probably just as well that the interview was conducted through a translator, although the interviewer did raise his eyebrows when I started to answer him, albeit in English, before one particular question had been translated! I was lucky to have understood him or I must have guessed the question correctly.

At last I got in to the water with two of the support team for my first dive in the Blue Lake. As well as testing equipment, checking the habitat and taking the opportunity to dive with two of the support team (one of whom I knew from his being a student of mine) I had time to drop a little deeper and start collecting a few small rock samples which I knew the scientists wanted but they were not expecting to get this early on. We also took temperature readings at different depths and passed this on the the science team who seemed very pleased.

Briefing from lead scientist from Perm University

Once out of the water I settled in to cleaning rebreathers and sorting kit, but was again whisked away by car to attend a ‘panel interview’ with the organisers, scientists and underwater camera crew discuss the project for a TV documentary. Yet again they were polite enough to include me in their discussions and questions with the aid of an interpreter and I just hope I did not look too much like a rabbit caught in headlights.

Blue Lake Project

The day started well with very little traffic on the way to Heathrow Airport. I guess, for most people, the Christmas and New Year Holiday had not yet come to an end. Clearing check-in was quick and easy and no one even asked why I was taking so much luggage.

Things slowed down a bit once I was through to departures. Firstly, I discovered that due to all the high winds and very bad weather the flight had been delayed and may even be cancelled. There was nothing much to do except sit down and answer a few emails before I found something to eat. When I did get up to head to breakfast the delay had gone from four hours left to go to just two, which was good news. One cup of tea later and I looked at the boards to see that the delay itself had been cancelled and I now had less than 20 minutes to get to the gate. I was the other side of the departure area, so time to break in to one of those ‘I am late but I don’t want to admit it’ jogs along the corridor

I got to the gate in time and boarded a fairly empty aircraft. They closed the doors and off we went. Well, off we went going backwards in to position to taxi to the runway, but then nothing happened. There were some odd noises followed by silence, followed by the captain announcing that the engines (or at least one of them) had failed to start.

So we all sat there being served more and more drinks while engineers did engineering things and the captain pushed buttons but still no joy.

“We need to find another aircraft” came the next announcement. At least the captain came out to explain in person that our original aircraft was still stuck in Germany and they had to hunt around to get a replacement but that a second replacement may take more time

So we sat on the plane for close to four and a half hours whilst they found another aircraft. A quick transfer by bus and a check to ensure all the luggage was onboard and we finally headed off in to the night sky.

We landed in Moscow in the early hours of the next morning. The luggage arrived in next to no time and I went to do battle with Russian Customs officials. They were definitely not sure what to make of the mountain of equipment I had balanced on two trolleys and started to ask questions far beyond the scope of my limited Russian language skills. I did however, have what I hoped to be my ‘get out of jail’ (or at east get through customs) free card.

My official invitation to take part in this project came from the Russian Committee for Olympic Sport. Diving might not be on their list but I was also lucky enough to be carrying a letter explaining my invitation, what I was doing in Russia and why I had all these boxes. I handed the letter to the first Customs officer who read it, looked at me then handed the letter to an obviously more senior official. He duly read the letter, looked me up and down and handed the letter up the chain of command. Thankfully the passing the decision making upwards only lasted three or four rounds before they x-rayed my luggage and waved me though.

Once through Customs I was met by two very patient support divers and we headed in to Moscow by car. It was decided that it would be a good idea to get something to eat. In true Russian style we of course went to a night club! Three cold, booted and thick jacketed divers then threaded our way across a throbbing dance floor passed scantily clad gyrating girls who did not appear to me to think that this was at all strange. We made our way to a small ‘VIP’ room at the back to have some fabulous borsch followed by poached salmon before heading back across the dance floor and out in to the cold night air.

I had been asked some time before I left UK if, when I stayed for the first night in Moscow, I would require a 5 star hotel or similar comfort. With only three hours available to sleep before we needed to get on our way to the dive site it would have been a waste if I had said yes. I of course said that anywhere I could sleep and have a shower would be fine, so I spent three hours in a bedroom in the athletes area in a sports complex originally built for the 2000 Moscow Olympics.

We then drove through the centre of Moscow, right past the Kremlin in all it’s amazing glory, to the train station for the 26 hour train journey to . This is not the first time I have seen Moscow and the Kremlin by night and it really is fabulous to see.

Twenty six hours on a train sounds like no fun but we had cabins with comfortable enough bunks and he journey was interspersed with eating and the occasional glass of vodka.

The train journey was capped off with a few hours by van to finally arrive at the Blue Lake. A little tired but raring to get under water and start exploring.

Blue Lake Project

The packing is almost done, just the 100 kg plus of luggage to drag through the airports! Once again I really do need to say thank you to all the dive equipment manufacturers who have jumped in with offers of sponsorship.  My very good friends at Analox (www.analox.net) are looking after the gas we breathe with an ATA Trimix Analyser, an O2EII Nitrox Analyser and an EII CO Carbon Monoxide Analyser.  Not only that but they are very generously helping finance part of the expedition.  Without these guys we would be a bit stumped.

The ANALOX Analysers tested and ready for packing

Next in the bags is the warm and toasty HALO 3D from Fourth Element.  Fourth Element (www.fourthelement.com) are one of the major sponsors of the project and a mountain of their thermal gear has already been shipped and is on site.

The HALO 3D - looking for a space in one of the bags!

Santi Drysuits (www.santi.pl) have kindly lent a dry suit and active heating systems. With luck I will have surface supplied power in the habitat.  I will update the blog with progress on that once we have got it up, running and fully functioning.

More kit, this time from Santi Drysuits

Liquivision (www.liquivision.com) have loaned some X1 computers too

Last but certainly not least, Imtech (www.imtech.eu) are sponsoring the habitat. Imtech are a European-wide company specialising in major electrical, mechanical and ICT engineering works. I am looking forward to working with them post expedition to look at environmental control for habitats to make these types of project even safer.

Blue Lake Project

APD come up trumps

Yet more boxes and more packing.  This time courtesy of APD who have kindly lent a couple of Inspirations for the project. (The black covered one is my own unit). The house is more over run with dive kit than usual.