Perhaps it was nitrogen narcosis or air toxicity from the air in his tank. The camera angle changes, going horizontal, continuing to record as his body convulses one last time and ceases to move, alone at the bottom of the ocean.īut what had caused Yuri Lipski to react as he had may never be known. The camera continues to record as he tries to inflate his buoyancy jacket, his disorientated mind vaguely comprehending that safety lies on the surface, 115 meters above. The camera continued to record as he rips the mask from his face, as he rips his regulator out of his mouth, as the last gasp of air is ripped from his lungs. Lipski landed with an inaudible thud, shaking the recorded image. It showed an uncontrolled descent from the Arch all the way down to a depth of 115 meters. His camera recorded the entirety of the dive. What happened next was to make Lipski’s dive the most famous at the Blue Hole. Weights secured in place, his helmet camera primed to record this memorable dive, Yuri Lipski took a giant stride into the tapering shaft of the Blue Hole and began his descent. He wasn’t concerned, he was well prepared, all his equipment was in perfect working order and he was confident in his diving abilities. What wasn’t standard was that he was doing the dive alone. This was the standard operating procedure for such a challenging dive. Still, Yuri had factored all this into his dive, had planned his route, dive depth, times. Constant vigilance was important when diving so deep. With a finite amount of air in the tank, a miscalculation could leave Yuri with barely enough air to make it back to the surface alive. This feature had taken many unsuspecting divers by surprise, causing them to underestimate the depth they were descending to, and the amount of air they were consuming. Compounding these challenges, was the odd descending angle of the tunnel itself. Worse still, the incoming flow of water from the open sea had a tendency to lengthen the time it took to exit the passageway on the open seaward side. With this crucial piece of equipment, he would know what depth he was descending to, the amount of air remaining in his tank throughout the entire time he was underwater, and even the amount of time the overall dive should take him.įurther pre-dive planning had forewarned him that the Arch could appear deceptively shorter than it actually was. Yuri was acutely aware of the conditions awaiting him, all the pertinent information programmed into his diving computer to be viewed at a glance. At that depth the water becomes murky, the visibility becomes reduced, and the strong down current makes just entering the passageway a physical challenge. Lying at 56 meters (184 feet) below the surface, the Arch is a 26 meter (85-foot) horizontal tunnel that leads from the vertical shaft of the Blue Hole to the open sea. The extreme danger of diving here is the drop-off on the seaward side that plunges down to 1,000m.Īt 22 years old, Yuri Lipski from Russia was already an experienced and qualified technical scuba diver and, on 28 April 2000, was more than aware of the unique challenges of diving deep into the Blue Hole, and he was more than ready for the journey down to The Arch. The danger of diving here is the depth of 100m. The lure to dive here is the depth of 100m. The professional divers, years of experience tucked under their weight belts, head to the Blue Hole located on the southwest coast of the red sea, searching for the dive of a lifetime. Hundreds if not thousands of recreational scuba divers descend each year into the crystal blue waters of the Red Sea in Egypt, tanks strapped on their backs, masks cinched in place, ready to marvel at the colorful underwater life and spectacular coral formations.
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