The 2014 Jeep Ice Safaris season started on March 1. The total of 6 safaris took place, each of which was unique in its own way. The season was finished successfully on March 31
In May 2013 BaikalTek’s trimix divers made several trial dives to depths up to 100 meters at water temperature of +2 degrees. July started with another safari at Baikal aboard “Valery”, this time following “Olkhon Safari” route. On the 7th and 8th of September we had test dives using unique hybrid dry suit Waterproof D1 Hybrid with built-in 3D net lining. BaikalTek’s instructor Tatyana Oparina made a dive to 150 meters, setting a record of diving in cold water among women.
Tough March is now over – the month of best under-ice diving in the world, the month of BaikalTek’s ice jeep diving safaris at Olkhon and Maloe More. Safaris are over, but the dragon has not left yet. This year extremely cold March has prolonged winter not only in Moscow, Kiev and Warsaw, but also here at Baikal.
The first of the season diving safari aboard ship “Valery” started on May 26th. We followed the route from Listvyanka to the north through Eastern Olkhon to “the Shore of Brown Bears”, and then via Ushkanii Isles back to Eastern Olkhon and Listvyanka. The safari was called “Chasing Ices” because it is a seasonal safari, which can take place only in May, when ices are supposed to float around the lake
So it happened that we celebrated the end 2011 and beginning of 2012 twice. First more than 30 participants (20 divers) got together on the 24th of December on the lake shores to congratulate Baikal with New Years celebratory dive. BaikalTek’s New Year’s tree this year was “green”, ecological; not to litter Baikal and cut down life fur-tree – we put together New Year’s tree out of wooden planks and used masks, flippers, snorkels and lanterns as decorations.
Irkutsk, Baikal, Dive-center “BaikalTek”. This Baikal safari started on June 11th 2011 when the ship “Valery” left from Listvyanka. The idea for this safari came up in October 2010, when divers from club “BADDI” (Novosibirsk, who participated in safari “Golden Fall”) found ship’s mast near Ushkanii Isles. We thought that it might be a mast of a steamship “St. Innokentij” that sunk in 1888 near Ushkanii Isles. A couple of expeditions have been looking for this ship, but had no results.
Not everybody knows yet, that near Olkhon Island from end February to the beginning of March you can experience a different kind of universe on Earth. At this place, just for a month (and not for everyone) a door opens to a different dimension. And through this door we enter the world of ice jeep safaris.
Olga Kamenskaya’s photo album “Baikal: the Kingdom of Water & Ice” was published in Italian town Piazzola sul Brenta not far from Venice. It was published by a small, but very famous in Europe family typography «Papergraf», which prints books and other publications for Vatican, and is a partner for Russian publishing giants “Slovo” and “Terra”.
The traditional technical diving week that we hold in the beginning of August was a success. The traditional participant of the event was “Krasnoyarsk club of underwater expeditions”, headed by the technical instructor NAUI Vasily Kirichenko. Kemerov’s club “Nayada”, headed by Roman Vytovtovym, has visited the great lake Baikal for the second time. The head of Moscow diving club SDD Sergey Dorofeev (Instructor-trainer NAUI Nitrox, Instructor NAUI-TEC, Instructor CMAS**, NITROX Instructor CMAS) together with his student Lena Zhuravleva (diver NAUI-TEC and TECHNICAL WRECK DIVER NAUI) joined us for a diving safari and completed Trimix courses.
