Dry suits with heaters, special masks: in

Tethys Bay

, a stretch of sea near the Italian

Mario Zucchelli

station , dives are carried out in waters at -2 ° C to support the scientists involved in the

XXXVIII Italian Expedition of the National Research Program in Antarctica

, coordinated by the CNR for the scientific part and by ENEA for the logistics and funded by the Ministry of University and Research.

Andrea Bettini / Rainews24

Preparations for the dive in Tethis Bay

In these images an Army raider and a Navy diver descend into a hole made in the pack ice and recover structures deposited five years ago on the seabed as part of the Rossmod project to study their colonization by aquatic species. 

“The biggest difficulty - explains the dive director, Primo Palombaro Ivano Cardinali of Consupim - is when the outside temperature is -20 degrees: the biggest problem is managing the operators out of the water”.