Kate our diving officer recently got a risk assessment approved for us to go diving on ice bergs. The conditions need to be calm on the surface and we an air temperature of > -5 oC, the icebergs also need to be grounded and fasted within fast ice for us to get close to them, if not then we can look at them from a distance.
When there is no fast ice, ice bergs move with the wind and currents, unless grounded. During this time ice bergs are too unpredictable to dive on, as below the surface is 3 x the height of what is above the water. Even on a cold day icebergs can roll and break up.
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| Kate Stanton's photo |
Here is a wide angle shot of the ice berg in Hangar
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| You can see the excitement in my eyes! |
One day last week we went diving through the main hole whilst Ben's controlled his remotely operated vehicle (ROV) called Debra through the safety hole and videoed our dive! It was such an incredible experience diving under the ice whilst on an iceberg and an ROV which looked like an alien under water followed us.
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| DEBRA the ROV |
These are the incredible shots Ben took with the ROV - you can use us for scale. The iceberg is 14 m deep!
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| Undulating cusps of the icerberg |
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| Collecting algae (mostly diatoms) off the iceberg!!!!! |
It is such an amazing opportunity to dive under the ice and then around an iceberg that I took the time to have a bit of a relax in the dive hole afterwards!
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| Way too acclimatised...the water is -1.8 and I'm not wearing any gloves.... |
