Steve Lewis – Tech Diver Training
The eastern-most portion of North America is not blessed with the mildest, most timid winter weather… Fact is, it’s cold, snowy, windy, and inhospitable for months… Short hours of daylight too. Not great for air travel, and true to type, two of our team (Gemma Smith and Phil Short), spent an unscheduled layover in Halifax on their journey in.
So why organize an expedition in winter?
Simply a case of access. The Bell Island Mine museum is closed to visitors which gives us full range of the facility… DAN researchers Neal Pollock, and Stefanie Martina running ultrasound scans on the museum floor, and taking blood draws in the theatre, rebreathers and drysuits drying on racks, other dive gear in semi-organized piles, tea, coffee and food catered in the snack bar, and the film crew spreading equipment in the spaces in-between.
Certainly not much difference between temps in the mine… Chilly and super humid in the approach to the water, six-degrees below the surface.