Round-the-world expedition dives into voyage at one hundred per cent!

For the OSHEE World Expedition crew, of which Divers24 is a media patron, the European leg has just come to an end. The crew still has six continents to go, while the ‘home’ one had a number of key functions and important chapters for the expedition, as well as allowing the crew to make technical adjustments to the yacht, test the sports equipment and much more to confidently enter African waters and beyond.

First things first, Europe

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The moment of departure, after years of preparation, was certainly the first deep breath of the yacht and the crew. There have been many such “deep breaths” in recent months, including diving ones. OSHEE World Expedition The crew are partly divers with experience, and partly those for whom this is a completely new subject. On board is all the necessary equipment, allowing them to explore underwater anywhere in the world, and during the route Gdansk – Gibraltar, they allowed themselves to check also the diving aspect of the expedition in technical terms, as well as the fascination with the subject (or not!) in those who have not yet had any experience.

First breaths underwater

After a long break, due to preparations for a cruise, they tried out the equipment quickly, already in the middle of the Baltic Sea, near the island of Bornholm. There Blazej and Marta undertook the official opening of the almost four-year diving season.

[blockquote style=”2″]”In the marina – the sun-filled Belgian town of Ostend – surrounded by beautiful yachts and people walking leisurely on the promenade, the sound of a compressor could suddenly be heard. It was our crew preparing Lukasz and Tomek for the dive. For a long time, between watches, they had been reading materials, watching videos, asking dozens of questions, and it was in Ostend that they learned the basics in practice. The first moments and breaths underwater, the smiles on our faces when we start doing the next exercises and the total euphoria after getting out of the water. I knew then that my students – and above all my co-crew – would love diving. And this is only the beginning and we have almost four years on board ahead of us!” – says Marta, crew member and diving instructor[/blockquote].

Learning to dive on an expedition yacht is not the easiest of things. Limited time at a location and the inability to swim to all the spots is one thing. Really often the good locations start when the crew already has to change course and this proves to be quite a challenge. We managed to finish the training in Spanish waters, in the area of the city of A Coruña, more precisely in a small bay where the yacht anchored.

[blockquote style=”2″]”In all honesty? None of us expected it to be this good out there. Small depths, lots of underwater vegetation, fish, starfish, octopus and large crabs – all this made each dive a great adventure and the beginners caught the bug” – Blazej, deck captain and organiser of the round-the-world cruise, told us. Marta adds: – “As their instructor, I watched with pride how well they did with buoyancy, exercises, how they smiled and came out delighted after each dive, despite the absolutely barbaric water temperature.”[/blockquote]

What’s next?

Soon you will read our report from the OSHEE World Expedition crew diving in Africa – the first will be Morocco. Filmmakers and photographers, who form the crew of the cruise around the world and who first had to dive for the first time, have already rolled up their sleeves and announce that it will be a real diving adventure for all readers! As Magda Bielecka, the co-organiser of the expedition, informs us: “During our trip we would like to visit not only ‘dive spots’ which every diver dreams of, but we will also explore unknown places. We are looking for them due to the fact that there are places in the world that can only be reached by travelling hundreds of nautical miles, without airports and ferries overcrowded with tourists, and we have the conditions for this.”

S/Y “OSHEE” is a two-masted steel sailing yacht and can accommodate up to ten people on board for ocean voyages. Thanks to its design, the yacht is well insulated from external conditions, the low draft also allows safe coastal navigation. Large water and fuel tanks, an efficient desalination plant and energy recovery systems from sunlight, wind and water mean that the yacht “OSHEE” is minimally dependent on shore-based technical infrastructure and has a very low environmental impact. On board the yacht there is complete expedition and exploration equipment, including bicycles, kayaks or paragliders, as well as the diving equipment we are most interested in. All this allows you to get to know the places you visit from land, water, under water and from the air.

The next, African leg of the OSHEE World Expedition, will lead through Morocco, Madeira, the Canary Islands, Western Sahara, Senegal, Gambia and Cape Verde Islands, where the expedition will begin crossing the Atlantic Ocean to South America in early November. Further stages of the expedition will pass through Antarctica, the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, South Asia and Africa, the Caribbean, North America, Greenland and Scandinavia. The voyage is scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Source: Press release

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