It was announced yesterday that Poseidon Diving Systems are one of the partners in Virgin Oceanic’s new quest. Richard Branson and Chris Welch plan to visit the deepest places in the five oceans in a the Deep Flight Challenger a submarine.
The project aims not only to dip down and back but to glide at depth, collect scientific information and samples and film the environments in great detail to enable scientists back on the surface to benefit from what are bound to be huge amounts of new information, discoveries of new species and materials that will be referenced for decades to come.
Poseidon will provide rebreathers and technology for use in some of the support functions. Whilst this is a little beyond the scope of PADI training it is amazing to think that rebreathers have evolved far enough that a recreational rebreather can be involved in an expedition such as this.
The challenge of not only surviving but operating effectively at these depths and pressures is huge. The pressure at the seabed in the Mariana Trench is nearly 1100 times greater than at sea level (Go back to your PADI Open Water Manual if you want to work it out accurately) providing an engineering challenge that has meant that only one vessel has been to this depth before. Branson stated that although this is a risk the biggest concern is entanglement or snagging on debris that they don’t see in time to avoid. As such there is a big investment in what is the best sensor to aid them in this.
I think this will herald a renewed interest in ocean exploration at all levels and that is great for divers everywhere. Thanks to Poseidon for inviting me to tag along and Sir Richard (in case you are reading this) let me know if you have a headache and need someone to take your place!
In Aqaba with Graham Hawkes at the moment we are providing rebreather support team to 100m in the case of entanglement..they are using Super Falcon One here and doing a video survey on the 100m contour of the Jordan coast. I will post the full story here in early May when the project is finished.