August 18^th 2004
Waking up on the Lavrentyev research vessel at N64 45.020, W177 29.651 (WGS84) we started the day by exploring the ship, especially the dingy we were planning to dive from. We learned that the dingy belonged to another organisation, so we had to get separate permission to use it. At this point we were not even surprised, getting under the skin of Russian logic of cause we had to get a special permission; this couldn’t have been any different.
The doctor onboard the Lavrentyev, a nice Russian lady, picked us up in the hallway and asked us to join her in the infirmary. She did a quick physical examination of the divers and repeatedly ordered us not to drink alcohol (as if she thought all men were stinking alcoholics). We exploited the opportunity to snoop around for some medical oxygen but didn’t find any.
Suddenly with no warning Jan was told to go ashore and to find some good quality oxygen, 50 seconds later he was on a tugboat going to Anadyr. A few hours later he returned with oxygen, this time in acceptable quality. Also the weather seemed to give us break. The wind was definitely decreasing and the sky was clearing. After an hour we lifted the anchor and finally started our voyage to the Tsjeluskin. Robert called a meeting with the Scandinavian divers with the aim to get an idea of our status. With all the problems we had encountered nobody seemed to have a complete overview of the situation. However, in an hour we more or less had an idea of the prioritized list on things to do before we could be operational for diving. We called a meeting with the expedition leader and from here most of the tasks were left for the Russians to manage. Us Scandinavians went to the dive room and started unpacking and testing the rebreathers. The cameras and lighting were mounted on the housings and everything checked for transportation damages. It took very little time to ready the equipment why we were left with plenty of time to catch up on lost sleep and jetlag from the prior two days. Initially the trip was a very pleasant but after a few hours the waves picked up making the Lavrentyev roll and some of the expedition members already started to get seasick.

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