On the topic of Aged SuperHumans diving in Antarctica, let’s explore the history of SCUBA diving in Antarctica a little bit.
When do you think people first jumped into the –1.8°C (28.58° F) water in Antarctica?
What was the first diver like and why did he plunge into the fridgid, clear, beautiful water?
When did underwater science in Antarctica really start?
No, though Paul really is an Aged SuperHuman, he is not quite the first diver in Antarctica.
The first diver was actually a man named Willy Heinrich (who is actually from a little city in Germany a few miles from where I was born) and he plunged into the icy waters on April 16, 1902. That’s over 108 years ago!
The first diver in Antarctica: Willy Heinrich
A carpenter, a mechanic, and an inventor (who also invented an ice-bicycle), he jumped in, not to do science, but to do ship repairs. He went in when darkness of winter still covered Antarctica and he gets the award for the first open water dive in Antarctica and the first dive under the ice of Antarctica.
Various US and Russian Navy teams and divers took to the waters about 40 years later though most were simply doing it to be heroes or to fix ships. Sadly, none collected any serious scientific data.
Scientific data collection under the ice of Antarctica has actually been around for less than 50 years. In 1961, Verne E. Peckham started scientfic diving in Antarctica and he gets the award for the first extensive diving in Antarctica and for the first real scientific diving under the ice. 
Our Paul, who interacted with Verne Peckham in the 1960s, thinks Peckham “was truly a hero and a saint”!
Like Heinrich, Peckham also went under in the darkness of winter. Peckham actually went under by himself and for the fun of it as his actual job was laboratory manager. Going doing 35 times, he went under for up to one hour and went down to 160 feet. Peckham also set the stage for our team. Like Stacy and Paul, he studied benthic ecology. He actually collected organisms back in 1961 in order to photograph them in the lab. Though we will still collect some organisms, we’ll also take lots and lots of pictures and videos of organisms in their actual habitat thanks to the advanced technology and equipment that we have available now.
Similar to Paul’s settling plates in the water column, Peckham also put down metal rings on the bottom of the ocean for long-term studies. Paul actually found them, six years later, in 1967 and photographed them before anchor ice, (ice which is attached or anchored to the bottom or to submerged particles) eventually carried them away.
After Peckham, underwater science and diving really got going in Antarctica and various divers braved the waters for the benefit of research. This also led up to Paul, who, though he was not the first Antarctic diver, has logged over 900 dives under McMurdo’s ice and has done wonders for science. In fact, Paul studied the marine ecosystems so intensively that he developed an understanding of them as systems - what makes them work and how different animals in them interact - and he devised the paradigms that describe those basic interactions that still guide our research today. Check out Paul's research on his website - http://daytonlab.ucsd.edu/.
We are honored to have Paul with us again and we hope we can help him break 1,000 dives in Antarctica this year!
Our next journal will be about the equipment you need to be safe and comfortable in the water, but If you'd like to learn more about the early divers, browse through this thorough website, Diving under Antarctic Ice: A History.
As you read, think about these questions:
What motivated other people to jump in the water?
What did they find and learn?