When I tell people I live in Sweden they usually make the association that it is very far to the north but in truth I live in the southern parts of Sweden at only about 57 degrees north. This trip sent me straight north to a very special area close to Strömsund in northern Jämtland at about 65 degrees north. By the little village Stora Blåsjön (the Great Blue Lake) is an area of limestone that has given the area a very special look and a varied flora not seen in other parts of Sweden. It is also an area with a number of caves formed by the water flowing through the cracks in the mountains. The longest dry cave in Sweden, the Coral cave, can be found here but it is also the site of potentially one of the world´s most ambitious ongoing cave diving explorations. As the river Bjurälven enters Sweden from Norway it soon disappears underground and is gone from view for about three kilometers before reappearing downstream again. Speleologists have been interested in the area for a long time but haven’t had the means to enter the water filled passages, but with the ongoing project Expedition Bjurälven this has changed. The first dives when it was established the cave in the little lake Dolinsjön could be used as an entrance to the system was made in 2007 and since then there has been at least a week of exploration each year except for one. Actually the cave was found much earlier than this in 1979 when Bo Lenander donned a mask and freedived down in the chilly mountain lake to find a cave that he deemed was big enough to squeeze into. Without dive gear and faced with a big water flow he wisely didn’t at that time.

The expedition is held by the Swedish Speleological Society’s Diving Section and participation is by invitation only. So what makes this expedition such a special one? Well there are many things. For one the diving is only conducted in wintertime when the lake is covered by over a meter of ice and then a considerable amount of snow on top of that and with air temperatures going as low as -20 C or beyond. Why, you ask? Is it the crazy Swedes trying to stay true to their Viking heritage?

No, this cave is very much an active cave still being formed and the thing carving it out of the rock is flowing water, lots of flowing water. As the spring comes and the snow on the mountains melts the flow can be up to 20 knots coming out of the cave and this very effectively stops any diver from going in. But in the winter time the flow is next to zero and although cold, the diving gets easier.

The cave is also very remote, first it is a trip of about 15 hours by car north (make that 23 hours with public transport and 60kgs of gear) then it is repacking to snowmobiles and driving for about 40 minutes out into a nature reserve to the dive site. The expedition holds special permission for the diving and for transporting gear as this is a protected area because of the very special nature. So after getting that far, a hole is made in the thick ice and a base camp is set up. The organization is astonishing and by experience the members know what to bring. There are heated tents for changing and a transportable power generator for making coffee and hot food. To keep warm is extremely important out here and a lot of thought has gone into this subject.

What about the diving then? Surely after this much ordeal the diving is simple? Oh no my friend, the fun has just begun. Upon entering the water, which is about 1 C, you quickly need to drop down so as not to get a frozen regulator at the surface that starts free flowing, wasting your gas and postponing the dive. Then the entrance to the cave needs to be dug out at the beginning of the week so a diver with side mount can squeeze through. The first time I did this I swam back and forth a few times to get used to the restriction and it actually felt better by each passing. Still, people get stuck here quite often and you need to stay calm and dig yourself free. Well inside, the passage is low but stunningly beautiful, the white walls are faceted after being carved by the water and looks like they are made of snow. We had planned a shorter acclimatizing dive as my first one but it held enough surprises. After facing another creep and crawl restriction that made me happy for the helmet I had borrowed my first regulator began to flow, I shut it down and went on to the next one for a few breaths before that one froze as well… this being such a common problem up here every diver actually carries at least three tanks each so I switched to my third regulator only to be faced with a third freeze… happy days. Thinking about my options I started breathing from the reg that was worst of, a really full on freeze and by opening and closing the valve for each breath, I could conserve the air in the tank. I signaled my buddies it was time to go and we turned to swim out. On the way I checked the other two regulators and they had thawed somewhat and had stopped flowing so I could keep them open, still breathing from the tank that was worst of. As we went through the last restriction I breathed from one of the working regulators as valve handling and squeezing would be a bit tricky. As I calmly swam out of the cave I sent a thought to Cristina who had taught me the importance of keeping cool in the cave at all times and a situation that might have been uncomfortable now seemed more like a good experience. After this first dive I had no problems with any regulator for the rest of the trip so I figure maybe this was the caves way of welcoming me and at the same time reminding me to keep being alert.

On later dives I went further into the cave and came to places like the altar hill and the temple room that are absolutely breathtaking places and has only been visited by a handful of people over the last few years. The high flow in the cave makes wonderful formations and very clean white walls that reflect your light right back at you. I also met with some of the sluggish trout living in the cave, it seems like they have no idea how to react to a diver visiting so they just stay there and stare at you even when you are just centimeters away. Some of the fish has been collected for research and could even be collected by hand in some cases.

I was prepared for the cold water and was a bit surprised that even after an hour in the freezing water I wasn’t really cold. But with a Fourth Element SubX undergarment and a Whites Fusion Tech drysuit I really shouldn’t be surprised. As I said, keeping warm is the top priority both for comfort and to keep alert. A cold and sluggish diver makes mistakes so proper insulation is an important part of diving in challenging conditions.

The project aims to explore the cave that has become the longest underwater cave in Sweden and is adding more line daily and surveying every meter of it. Every 2,5 meters the direction, depth and volume of the cave is recorded and all the data is then entered in a computer to get a 3D picture of the cave. To help with accurate mapping is a system for tracking the divers underground. It is Bo that 33 years after finding the cave still is very much involved in exploring it. He is not only an active spelunker but also a top radio amateur that custom builds the tools used for this tracking. Certain points in the cave is marked and topside is tracked and then measured with high precision GPS so the positions of the divers can be determined with astounding precision. When two divers found a dry section of cave several hundred meters back they could come back the next day with another of Bo´s inventions, a through rock cave phone so they could let the surface support know they were alright and walked around in the cave beyond. With this kind of teamwork and advanced technical aids the mapped passages now measure over 900 meters and with the current rate I think its safe to say next year it will extend well beyond a kilometer.

All things taken together with the effective teamwork establishing base camp, having advanced tracking technique and performing exploration dives at difficult subzero conditions makes this project an impressive and really inspiring one. It would never be possible without the help of sponsors, both local and international, but the people that really deserve recognition is the local inhabitants that help the expedition year after year.

A special thanks to Micke Tilja from Dykarna.nu for many of the pictures.

After a great ending of 2012 with cave exploration on Grand Bahama I braced myself and went on a long journey. From the Caribbean, across USA and then across the Pacific Ocean took me all the way to Australia, stumbling out of the plane, trying to figure out what time of what day it was. From caves where the fish life was somewhat limited I was now to set out on a completely different type of diving again, this time with some of the largest fishes around, great white sharks. I made my way down to South Australia and Rodney Fox shark expeditions. This operation has been around for a long time and the experience of the crew is hard to match. Rodney, who started the operation is the survivor of a very serious shark attack but instead of being afraid of his attacker he has spent most of his life studying them and helping others to get the opportunity to meet this awesome animal.Today his son Andrew runs the expeditions instead and his love and knowledge of the sharks is impressive.

Aboard The Princess II I took the place as one of the volunteers that helps out onboard with whatever needed doing together with the rest of the friendly crew. Once again I was exposed to a whole new part of diving that I had never experienced before. In a few days I went from precision buoyancy, loaded with gear in the back of a cave to being loaded down with lead to be stable on the bottom of a cage. One of the unique things about the sharkdiving with Rodney Fox is the ability to lower a cage with four divers to the seafloor with a crane. First seeing the behavior of the sharks at the surface where they are attracted to and attacking the bait and then seeing them at the bottom swimming along the formations there is two quite different experiences. Together they give a better impression of the sharks in my opinion and it can only be experienced here. Its hard to explain just how big of a fish the great whites are. Sure, there are a lot of big sharks out there but these are not only 4-5 meters long, they are massive muscular animals that leaves no doubt as to who is in charge. When one of them gives the cage a little investigative nudge, you will notice. These are truly the rulers of the sea around here and you are just a visitor in their realm.

Around the Neptune islands there are sharks pretty much year round and they are attracted to the colony of New Zealand fur seals that live here. The shark expeditions has a scientific side to them as well and all the sharks are well documented with photo identification, in large part carried out by Andrew himself. He could fast and reliably name most of the sharks we encountered and counted up to twenty separate individuals around the boat in one single day.

Another part is collecting tissue samples from the sharks which is not for the faint of heart. Just watching Andrew leaning out of the cage with a speargun and firing at a shark that was about the same size of the cage itself was an interesting feeling but thankfully the shark seemed to notice it about as much as a mosquito bite. The job these guys do to raise the awareness of the sharks and giving everyone the opportunity to get out and meet these animals face to face is important I think and after seeing how much care is taken to do it in a responsible way that doesn’t hurt the sharks I have been able to create my own opinion on the baited cage diving and how it can be run in a responsible way.

So where I am off to next you will soon find out, I can tell you it will include some pretty low water temperatures and a fair bit of excitement. Stay tuned and dive safe!

Then the cave diving started for real and as Cristina pushed her students on all sorts of drills I had a chance to spend some time trying to document them and the cave environment as well as doing a bit practicing for myself. Me and Cristina had some special dive plans for the end of the week so I practiced my side mount and stage handling as much as I could. Revisiting some of the caves where I did my course but this time with Cristina making trouble for other people than me I had a chance to really look at them and appreciate a lot of details I missed last time. I knew they were good but found a lot of things that exceeded my expectations in terms of decorations easily comparable with what I saw in Abaco. With ease Yolly passed her course and became a brand new cave diver so this year all three scholars have completed cave diving courses! I would recommend this to anyone who has an interest in some really challenging diving that forces you to hone your dive skills.

So with the course finished it was time for our little end of the year project. Cristina has been living on Grand Bahama for many years and has explored many of the caves there. One project she has been working on for five years is exploring the two systems of Chimney blue hole and Mermaids pond. These systems are close to another and a connection between these was one of the goals of the exploration. There is only one ocean to land connection previously in the Bahamas, found by Brian Kakuk. With a connection the cave would also become one of the larger on the island. The weeks prior to my arrival Cristina had been back and intensifying her efforts in exploring Chimney and laying thousands of feet of line in new leeds. Chimney is a little bit tricky as the diving has to be matched carefully with the tides. As the tide goes up water enters the cave in a massive whirlpool for six hours and then there is a short slack before all that water start flowing out of the entrance with force for six hours. It is in this short window of time when the tide changes that we had to slip into the cave. Its only just at the entrance/exit that the current is strong but it would be impossible to swim in against it once it starts blowing and it would be madness to go in when its siphoning as there is no chance to get out until the tide changes. Thankfully things like tides are faithful and quite predictable so we knew exactly when to be dressed and ready to start our dive.

With four tanks each we squeezed in through the entrance and started our long swim towards the end of the line. The cave is highly decorated but also highly influenced by the native settlements inland. Pollution has made the bacteria growth here explode and this together with a generous amount of silt makes the cave unforgiving in terms of touching just about anything. Fortunately most of the tunnels have plenty of room to swim without being to near bottom or walls. As we swam further and further in we dropped our stages and could swim on with only two tanks each making moving a little bit easier as we approached the yet unexplored part of the cave. As we came to the end of the line the exploratory line came out and I started putting new line in this tunnel never before swum by anyone. It is a special feeling and we were a bit like children in the candy store at the same time as we had to remember just how far a swim it was back where we came from. It is a sweet mix of emotions that all needs to be tucked away and saved for later as your mind focuses on important things like keeping you alive. The tunnels grew darker but suddenly we started seeing things we didn’t expect in the cave but that made us even more excited, garbage!

Now you might think garbage isn’t something to get all excited about but we knew that during hurricanes a lot of garbage often got pulled down in the mermaids pond opening so this meant we probably were getting close. Covering our strong cave lights with our hands we started looking around for other light sources and soon saw a small sliver of light coming down from above us, we had found an opening! This wasn’t the larger opening in Mermaids pond but likely a nearby small hole letting some light in so we kept going. The tunnel got a even darker and a bit silty so we soon thereafter called the dive, happy with the accomplishment. After a long swim out, picking up the stages on the way we got to the exit. Exiting Chimney when the water is going out is a bit like being born again. The opening is a straight shaft going from 12m up to the surface and with a current of maybe five knots or more pulling you along. A lot of fun.
After such a successful dive we went straight and started blending the tanks so we could go back the next day again.

New day and with new energy we loaded up the truck again to go back in the cave and se if we could find more of that light. Once again we sat at the edge of the entrance waiting for the tide to turn and like thieves snuck in at the first opportunity. Grinding our way through the low entrance and then again swimming in the spacious tunnels, this time knowing a bit more what to expect. As we reached the end of the line we had put in the day before Cristina tied in the exploratory reel and lead onward beyond were we stopped the day before. Everything just flowed and we had reached this point with plenty of gas left to keep looking further and we pushed on. Before long we got our reward, there right in front of us it was the main line leading down from Mermaids pond and it was an emotional moment when Cristina tied in the new line coming all the way from the ocean entrance in Chimney to the line coming from Mermaids pond that is actually her own original exploratory line. To complete the deed we followed the light and surfaced in the pond, we had completed the traverse.

At this point we took a pause where we called the divecenter to let them know what had happened and they came out and took some pictures remember this moment by. Then we climbed back in the water and started the long swim back out to sea so we could pick up all the tanks we had dropped on the way in. Once again we were spit out by the cave and washed ashore to stand on the beach and make a celebratory dance.
This was the last dive of 2012 and a sort of peak to a very good year of diving, I look forward to what 2013 will bring.

Last but not least I would like to congratulate Cristina who was just entered into the Explorers Club, well deserved!

From the Dominican Republic I flew to Grand Cayman and arrived to the Cobalt Coast Dive Resort where Divetech resides. With room, restaurant, divecenter and ocean all within a 100m radius it is easy to go diving, so easy you almost feel guilty about it… Almost.

I had been invited by the owner Nancy Easterbrook to come here to spend some time to work on my rebreather diving in a good environment. To say that Divetech is rebreather friendly is a bit of a understatement. Several of the staff are active CCR divers and the dive manager Steve is a no less than a rebreather instructor trainer. The center has several different machines for rent and the possibility to train people on them. For a rebreather diver to come here is a bliss with everyone being used to the machines and understanding the special needs that may exist. Actually once every year a week is dedicated to rebreather only during the event inner space when manufacturers come to show of their latest toys and likeminded divers can meet and dive together regardless of level. This has become a near must for some divers that come back year after year.

During my stay I had a good chance to enjoy a number of the divesites both on the north shore and on the west. The drama of the topography is quite something with very steep drop-offs close to land. Swimming along the reef at thirty meters, looking up to watch the waves and then looking down seeing just the wall thirty meter more downwards before it get dark and knowing that the bottom wont be reached for maybe 1300m. The reef had different character in different parts making the diving interesting and my favorites where some parts where it folded and formed little canyons and swim troughs. Most days we went out with the boat in the morning after breakfast. I was happy to see that even Steve as the manager joined in guiding dives, showing his top spots. It made me even happier to see someone like him who has been working with diving for years and years and many of them in the Caymans still surfacing from a dive absolutely jumping up and down with excitement over the things he had seen. That right there shows me there is a future working in the industry.

I also got to dive the Kittiwake wreck that was sunk two years ago after years of work by Nancy Easterbrook to bring the ship there and get all the relevant permits etc. The ship that used to be a submarine salvage vessel, sits perfectly upright in the sand and has been prepared for easy penetration. It is an absolute blast to swim from room to room and up staircases in a wild chase. So far not that many things that grow on the wreck but a lot of fish is starting to move in. Give it a few more years and it will be covered in life.

One of my best dives while here was on the house reef of Lighthouse point together with On drej from the staff. We each donned a bubblefree machine, grabbed our cameras and decided to swim until we got bored, cold or the memory card ran out. The silence and peacefulness when there is only CCRs in the water at the same time is great and since we always breathed the best mix for the depth our no decompression times compared to regular scuba was amazing. Had we done the same dive on nitrox we would have had an hour of mandatory decompression instead of just the normal safety stop we had now. In the end lunchtime called us back to land but not before we had spent hours on the reef.

I have spent time diving many different styles of equipment and configurations and especially during this scholarship but few things feel so right as CCR diving. It feels like what scuba should be and what Cousteau really meant with the silent world.

Each day offered up to twenty talks on differing subjects from cave exploration to rebreathers and physiology. Some of my favorites were Evan Kovacs 3D films from caves and Simon Mitchells talk about rescue of an unconscious diver.Between talks there was plenty of time to walk around the stands of leading manufacturers. Some interesting news were the launch of a drysuit from Fourth Element and backmounted counterlungs for the inspiration rebreather from AP valves.

Saturday night was a special event with a gala dinner. The group was definitely more used to drysuits and undergarments than tuxedos and evening gowns. The evening proceeded through several delicious courses and on to the giving out of awards. To mention just a few, Amy and Martin Stanton got the innovation award for their work with TekCamp and Richard Lundgren got the award as the diver of the conference. The award that touched me the most was the one for outstanding contribution to the diving industry which was awarded to Jim Standing and his colleague Paul Strike of Fourth Element. Jim is the European coordinator for the Rolex scholarship and helps me out with all my travels. Actually one of the things mentioned especially in the motivation for the award was the support of the scholarship. So a big congratulations!

The festivities continued quite late and I barely had time to let my head connect with my pillow before it was time to get up again. Well, its nothing coffee cant cure.

After an intense but very interesting weekend I came away inspired, with new knowledge and with new contacts. Already looking forward to Eurotek 2014. Where am I now? A hint is that I have changed both timezone and climatezone.

The R&D section does a lot of different things but one part is testing and evaluating equipment for the military divers. For this they have an ANSTI machine, pool with flowing water, indoor and outdoor pools, easy access to the sea and a team of engineers. The army needs equipment that is robust and can be taken into the field during all sorts of conditions and they wont ever take the manufacturers word for true until they’ve tried everything themselves. With a fully equipped test facility they can do all this and more. But the fancy equipment doesn’t end there, they are just about to hook up a brand new hyperbaric chamber system with a wet section making it possible to conduct test dives in a controlled environment to pressures equivalent of 160 meters without leaving the lab. Here they will among other things test new tables for trimix use.

Being at a Navy base I got to look around on some of the really interesting diving ships. And is there any better than an actual submarine? Staying under water for weeks in the cramped compartments with absolutely no personal space must be mentally challenging and I don’t think I could do it but it sure was interesting having a look around seeing what the life onboard may be like. Remember how I told you about how Molecular Products make CO2 scrubber material for submarines as well. Finally I found the filters and all the scrubber material keeping the crew alive.

If you have a lot of submarines you also need to have a plan for what to do if the crew needs rescuing. For this the navy has a refitted diving support vessel that carries a rescue pod capable of docking to a submarine in need and evacuate the whole crew. They can then be lifted under pressure up to the hyperbaric chambers onboard capable of bringing them safely back to normal pressure.

The military divers are trained to take care of various types of underwater work and I could see a parallel to the commercial diving training I did earlier this summer. One morning I followed the training in emergency ascents for the new divers. On site there is a 18m deep pool for doing ascents both for divers and for submarine escape training. Even though the training is from 18 m they have successfully tested exiting a submarine at ten times the depth. The trainees did free ascents deeper and deeper, all the time with a ratio of one instructor per student. This training has some safety concerns with the potential for lung damage etc. With a doctor next to the pool and a prepared recompression chamber ten meters away its made as safe as possible. Personally I kept to observing, freediving up and down the tank and looking. From an instructors point of view I envy the facilities and resources the military have for their training. I also wouldn’t mind sometimes to be able to give orders to the students in the same manner and have them followed… If any of my previous students read this, I don’t mean you.

That the Armed Forces invest a lot in their diving right now could also be seen in the massive amounts of new dive equipment soon to be brought into use. I had the privilege of testing the new rebreather to be used for the clearance divers, ISMIX. This is a semiclosed, fully mechanical and nonmagnetic rebreather making it possible to sneak up on even the meanest of mines. Having dived both open and closed circuit before the semiclosed was a new experience again. Having some characteristics from both worlds it took some time before I could comfortably keep the buoyancy and shift depths in a controlled manner. I guess it just takes a while to rewire the brain to the specific style. As I gently tried to sneak up on imaginary mines I had to admit to myself it would take a lot more skill and an inner calm to do it in a sharp situation. All in all the visit was valuable and a glimpse in to a whole different part of the diving world.

Now I spend a few days in Sweden preparing for the next adventure but knowing myself I´ll probably go diving with some friends.