Summer 2014 News
21.08.2014
In the year 2014 technical diving started with a course pack - Decompression Procedures + Normoxic Trimix for a French diver Florian Boisquillon. Florian mastered the courses within a week, passed exams in theory and practical skills, made dives for 10, 40, 45, 55 and 60 meters within the framework of the courses. Now Florian can dive deep wrecks in his lovely Corsica without nitrogen narcosis.
Our safari boat Valeria started this season (May 28 - June 1) renovated. The areas where the cabins are located have been completely rebuilt - new cabins have been introduced into the boat plan; sofas, walls, wiring, plumbing have been changed. Additional Wi-Fi has been installed - it is now available not only in the saloon, but in the cabins as well. New toilets and shower cabins have been made: now there are 4 toilets and 4 shower cabins available at Valeria, which is quite good for 16 people. Last year the bilge was changed on Valeria, this year brought change to the passenger saloons. Next year they plan to renovate the main saloon. The safari took us all the way to Olkhon. We dived in the area of Bolshiye Koty and in East Olkhon. Participants: club OOPS (Moscow) headed by Olga Kamenskaya and Dmitry Melamed - our regular customers, who arrange different Lake Baikal safaris, as well as guests from Poland and BaikalTek club member Sergey Galata.
The second safari for a big group of divers from Austria, Germany and Switzerland began the one but next day after the first one finished. This was arranged by an Austian company Waterworld. A long safari - 13 days (Route “Krugosvetka”/Baikal Round-the-World).
The third safari was also booked by Waterworld and also took us on the standard for Waterworld route round Lake Baikal. The tour leader on both Waterworld safaris was a famous underwater photographer and the head of the company Werner Thile (he spent all in all over a month here in Lake Baikal area!). Both groups travelled the following route: Listvyanka - Circum Baikal Railway - Bolshiye Koty - Khomuty - East Olkhon - the Ushkan Islands - Chivirkuy - Brown Bears Shore - Maloye Morye (The Small Sea) - Birkhin - Bolshiye Koty - Listvyanka. In both groups there were a lot of photopgraphers and video operators, so they collected a lot of materials about the area: a lot of great pictures, a lot of photo albums on personal pages in social networks, a great film, which can be called preliminary, because it is quite short, but creates a good meditative mood of getting deep into the Baikal.
Circum Baikal Railway and Bolshiye Koty dive sites met Waterworld with great visibility. The Ushkan Islands sealeries were full of nerpas (Lake Baikal seals) - we even saw them underwater in the remote from the sealery dive sites. Brown Bears Shore was quite up to our expectations - a brown bear even attempted at boarding our boat. The ship’s whistle drove the unwanted guest away. Diving in the northern part of this area was, as usually, wonderful - Ledianaya, Radouzhniy, Peschanaya Rechka - are top dive sites, plus to that - extremely good visibility.
In the area of Maloye Morye (The Small Sea) we made our traditional jeep safaris of Olkhon. These safaris are always of great interest for everyone, as the island offers a great variety of picturesque landscapes. Everybody liked diving on Cape Otto-Khushun, where we were lucky to run across 12 different species of amphipods of the Gammaridae family. We had a chance to see petroglyphs in Birkhin. Diving there was not much fun due to poor visibility, but there were a lot of models for macro-photographs. Walked around Peschanaya Bay beaches, in Bolshoye Goloustnoye, Bolshiye Koty, in the tunnels of Circum Baikal Railway. Hot springs in Chivirkuy Bay. Of course, traditional shashliky (the Russian for shishkebab) on Otstoyniy beach and a banya (Russian sauna) at huntsman’s place in Brown Bears Shore. To crown it all - a visit to The Baikal Museum in Listvyanka, where we were at the aquarium, made an “underwater journey” to the deepest point of the lake and enjoyed the exhibition of Olga Kamenskaya’s photos. During the first Waterworld safari a technical diver Sabina Kerkau accompanied by Gennady Misan made a number of trimix dives to the depths of 55-65 meters and collected wonderful photo and video materials of Lake Baikal underwater.
Our Austrian, German and Swiss guests were very happy with such an interesting programme and left Russia with a feeling of deep satisfaction of their holidays here and a wish to come back again. You are welcome to book the years to come and we also happy to offer Jeep Ice Diving Safaris!
After the Waterworld safaris finished, we had a six-day safari on Valeria in July. On this safari we focused of diving one dive area along Circum Baikal Railway. This is, of course, not by chance - Circum Baikal Railway is a great place in terms of various landscapes, plus to that unique bridges and tunnels architecture of the old railway. The dive sites are also of interest here. Besides, they are not so easily accessible, as there is basically no shallow water areas along the track, so it is quite problematic to anchor the boat or to tie it up to the shore. So, almost all our dives we made from a drifting boat.
The weather was marvellous - heat, no wind, so we could relax after the dives - sunbathing on the sun deck and swimming in the cold Baikal waters. As there was no wind we were free to explore every place we planned, because it was easly for the boat to get close to the shore. We made 40 - 120 meter dives, the visibility was perfect, we even made use of a scooter, with long bottom time, many stage tanks, so we explored a huge territory and found new interesting places - old railway carriages remnants and just beautiful underwater sites. Our guests from Hong Kong and Thailand successfully completed Dry Suit Diver courses during the safari (how could this be otherwise - they had a thousand registered dives (!) before they satrted the course) and were able to make good dives and make a video of them. We still have to think over the results of this safari, luckily, there is a lot to think about.
After this safari we made a week-long safari on the same boat with a group from Singapore and one more seven-days techno-photo safari with a mixed group on the boat Myth. We took our guests from Singapore along the Listvyanka - East Olkhon - the Ushkan Islands - Chivirkuy - The Small Sea - Listvyanka route, during this safari two divers took Dry Suit Diver course.
The safari on Myth participants: technical divers from Moscow and Irkutsk, a well-known underwater photographer from Ukraine and a diver from Penza. This was not a regular route safari. Myth started from Listvyanka and we headed straight to Circum Baikal Railway (enthusiastic about it after the previous safari to the place). We dived the sunken railway carriages again and made phtots and videos of the dives. We explored the deep area in Cape Kirkirey area - we like this deep site with underwater mountains and steep walls. Diving in the area is in dependence of good weather conditions, but we were lucky this time. During one of the stops at a remote pier in Circum Baikal Railway area we tried Myth’s new offer - banya (Russian sauna) in a tent on the shore. A hot banya with swimming in the cool Baikal after it was a success with everybody. After Circum Baikal Railway we travelled to Bolshiye Koty dive sites, where we dived Varnachka and Sobolev to everybody’s great pleasure. Having visited Peschanaya Bay we made an overnight boat journey to Birkhin. On the forth day in the morning we were already diving in Khoboy-Khushun area. This year this dive site is notorious for its poor visibility, so we had to dive in complete darkness along the gloomy huge rocks and walls of this beautiful, but impossible to see at the moment dive site. Having dived other sites of this area we cruised to Ogoi Island and visited a Buddhist stupa. The fifth day took us from Olkhonskiye Vorota (The Strait of Olkhon Gates) to the south - Birkhin again, but different dive sites and a night travel to another dive region. Early in the morning we started diving Bolshiye Koty dive sites again. On the first day in this dive area we focused on a dive site called Chiayachiy (Seaguls’). Chiayachiy is a very big dive site and it is worth 2-3 days of exploration. Cracky walls covered in huge sponge colonies, great cracks, deepwater canyons, tunnels, arches, numerous grottos - all in all, a vast area for technical, recreational and photo creativity. On the seventh day, after having dived Skripper and Varnachka we finished the safari in Listvyanka and we all left the boat feeling full of emotions (thanks to the diverse programme), not of nitrogen (thanks to Nitrox and Oxygen!).
Anna Tachkova took a Dry Suit Diver course, Andrey Nekrasov collected a database of photo and video materials to make use of for the years to come, Zhenya Masternak and Oleg Babko finished their courses - Advanced Nitrox and Trimix respectively. Valsiliy Yaroshenko made a series of photos of his regular model Nadezhda Chemeris in different dive sites, Katya Boyarinsteva completed her crossover to be an IANTD Instructor and Alexey Kouziayev nobly spent his holidays of a semi-military civil servant diving deep, including trimix. Our safari boat Myth proved to be a convenient, comfortable place for a small group. Double accommodation for 10 people, a saloon and a great cook, polite well-trained crew. Starting from next year we are going to have a Poseidon compressor in the machine room, which will make our safari service better and less loud.
This summer the last safari was on Valeria with a group headed by Anatoliy Verevkin (Nizhniy Novgorod). The last, because we started the safari season on May 25 this year and finished it on August 5 - over 2 months at a stretch at sea - this is quite a stress, so BaikalTek needs some rest.
However, the year 2014 safari season is not over - it is to be continued in Septemer with our traditional safaris - Zolotaya Osen/Golden Autumn, with a Polar safari to follow. So, Nizhniy Novgorod group travelled the route Listvyanka - Khomuty - East Olkhon - the Ushkan Islands - Brown Bears Shore - The Small Sea - Birkhin - Circum Baikal Railway. During this safari we gave OWD, Dry Suit Diver and Advanced Nitrox Diver courses. Apart from diving we cooked traditional shishkebab and made a fire on the beach Otstoiniy (East Olkhon), visited nerpas’ (Lake Baikal seals) sealery in the Ushkan Islands, went to banya at a huntsman’s place on Brown Bears Shore, enjoyed our jeep safari of Olkhon.
Plus to safaris, BaikalTek also made daily shore diving, giving courses of different levels and we also simply dived to relax. In the framework of the traditional Week for Technical Diving, which took place in the end of July - beginning of August, Mikhail Chuprov (Syktyvkar) successfully completed an Advanced Trimix Diver course, having made dives to 80 and 90 meters. BaiaklTek members Evgeniy Masternak and Maxim Skripnik completed an Advanced Nitrox Diver course, Oleg Babko - Trimix Diver. Congratulations from all of us!
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26.01.2021
One can quickly lose the skills. The habit to dive from a boat makes you relax. During the last three years, we haven’t had any deep trimix in Listvyanka. Time to catch up! (Gennadi’s comment: “That’s true. All the deep dives in the last three years were made from the safari boats”). And now, it is December again, the freest time to dive “for yourself”. Be it Covid or not, there is a lot of work in summer, as usual. So, the intensive preparation has begun! (Gennadi’s comment: “The idea is to dive VERY deep!”)
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21.07.2020
The two weeklong “coronavirus” diving safaris in June were technical ones. So, technical diving is always there. BaikalTek is a technical dive center, with Trimix facility TDI & IANTD. However, it does not mean that there is no place for recreation, photography, filming and other kinds of divers. The other way round: we pay attention to everyone’s need and interests, and are ready to accompany you in your diving any time.
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31.03.2020
The BaikalTek instructors often meet the seals under the ice because they dive often. A ‘normal’ diver is rarely so lucky. Jean from Switzerland is one of the lucky guys. Though it was his first Olkhon Ice Safari at Lake Baikal, he saw a lot: huge ice shapes, moving ice mass, dancing planaria… and finally, a seal!
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