Polar Ice diving

Hey everyone,

as the topic states, I'll be doing some diving in antarctica in the next 2 years but dragging a camera along seems to be creating a few problems:

1. It's Friggen cold! batteries going flat

2. condensation INSIDE the housing when moved from the 'warm' 50 degrees F inside the cabin to the -30 to 15 degrees F outside to the 28 degree water

3. Freshwater in controls freezing and cracking the housing/breaking oring seal

4. glass ports cracking when washed off or imersed in water due to rapid tempurature change

and i'm sure a variety of other problems i can't even think of yet.

for condensation I'm thinking of a ton of desicant to keep in minimal as most condensation should form outside the housing, however, the brings the freezing problem back up.

aside from the need to wash the housing and controls after the dive, condensation simply adds to the freshwwater present on the housing which, in antarctic tempuratures will freeze almost instantly. to counter this I was thinking of trying to transport the housing submerged in saltwater? The theory is that I could put it in water inside and move it outside which would idealy help stop condensation as the water would take somewhat longer to cool, plus it would not freeze instantly...then simply pulling it out and sticking it in the water come dive time.

that sound feasable? (or even make sence?)

I don't know, theres not enough info out there on diving in such harsh conditions, I'd hate to loose that much money worth of gear and not come out with any pictures. has anyone here ever expirianced anything quite that harsh?

_Mike

If the inside of the camera and housing is filled with super-dry air, then sealed, then everything is immersed in seawater for the trip to the dive, then I'm thinking you should be OK. I am a bit worried about your comment about freshwater in between the double o-rings. Should it be in there?

Cheers

James

fill your housing with prestone

well...shipping the camera is out of the housing. I'll be going from california to argentina by plane, then to the antarctic circle by boat. Ledgend has it, inside tends to be humid what with gear washing, wet cloathing and an attempt to heat the area happening which is what may likley cause the largest problems...also, even if i DID ship the camera in the housing, I'll be there for 2 weeks. and I can fill up a 1gig card at full resolution with reasonable ease. not to mention the need to switch bateries every half hour. so super dry air would only last so long...

on the topic of orings, first off, I dive with an ikelite housing with a single oring. However, the problem i forsee is not water between the orings, but rather the water in the small space between the two housing pieces, joined by the orings. any small amount of water could freeze and expand, causing the oring to leak, or worse yet, cracking the area around the latches if enough water freezes.

keep em' coming...I've got some time but I see it best to start figuring these problems out while I have time to plan accordingly...

Not sure who you'll be diving with; but if it's with NSF, a colleague who dove through the ice there last year passed on that folks going there should not have what's considered "standard" technical diving experience.

I you do have that experience, you'll be scared $h1tless.

Not knocking their program; as was passed on to me, it has a good track record, just proceedures vary widely from what the rest of us do by reflex.

All the best, James