The world record in closed-circuit diving was broken by the well-known scuba diver Krzysztof Starnawski. He did this in Lake Garda in northern Italy. The Pole went down to a depth of 303 meters. As he told in an interview with RMF FM, "the number is not accidental". "The record - as usual - was beaten accidentally. It was supposed to be a training before the next expeditions. We just wanted to check if we could get here to the bottom" 

Krzysztof Starnawski expedition Image source

Krzysztof said that their plan was at the time to explore the cave, which is not far from the lake. Unfortunately, weather conditions prevented them from diving. But Krzysztof and the whole team as well were ready to dive, so they stated that... they will drive up to the Garda lake and do training for further expeditions, and maybe by the way they will see if they can get there to the bottom. And so this record was broken!

Krzysztof said: "I am not a fan of diving in lakes or in the sea. What drives me about diving is exploration. Here it was not, but as part of training it is always good."

So they managed to break the world record in closed circuit diving.

Yes, with a closed circuit, in short CCR. There is division between open circuit and CCR. Each has its advantages, disadvantages and some problems related to it. This is how it separates, the same way as we can distinguish open waters and caves. There are people who still distinguish salty and sweet water. Just like in sport: there are disciplines in which there is a division between men and women, indoor and outdoor, and so on.
Krzysztof Starnawski Facebook Image source

303 meters - it was possible to descend to such a depth. 

And it's not a coincidence. Starnawski said that just before the dive someone mentioned that there are two movies right now played at cinemas about the 303 Squadron (No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron). So in this case, if they were already planning to dive around three hundred, they thought why not do it 303, for a memorial of compatriots from old times.

Lake Garda is very interesting. There is a beautiful area. The only disadvantage is that there are a lot of people because it is a tourist place, but it is inevitable in Europe. However, there is very clean water downstairs, although very cold - it is 8 degrees. Most of the diving is at 8 degrees, it is very low temperature for such dives. Diving lasted 7 hours, so it is very easy to fall into hypothermia, hypothermia, therefore I used the heating to raise body temperature, I used a special electric heating. The diving itself was not difficult enough because it ended my two-month trip around Europe, where I was involved in the exploration of caves. And many of these earlier dives were in some sense even more difficult, although not as spectacular, so they prepared me well for this dive. It went very smoothly, very easily, except for a few implosions in the equipment, but at these depths it is a standard that the equipment is destroyed, crushed. This is a pressure of 31 atmospheres - that is 10 times more than in the wheels of cars.

Krzysztof Starnawski's expedition Image source

Few words about Krzysztof Starnawski

Polish extreme scuba diver, speleologist, mountaineer, TOPR rescuer (Tatra Volunteer Search and Rescue). He specializes in cave and ice diving. 

  • The organizer and participant of the expedition, which in 2003 announced the finding of the wreck of the German ship MS Goya sunk in 1945 on the Baltic Sea.
  • At the beginning of December 2011, he set a world record in closed-circuit diving at the level of 283 meters. Which right now is 303 meters!
  • On October 1, 2012, he dived 223 m into the underwater cave at Hranicka's propast, setting a new record for Poland. Once again Starnawski measured the depth of this cave on September 27, 2016 - 404 m, which makes it the deepest submerged (underwater) cave in the world. The diver measured this by going down to 200 meters into the rock formation gap, and then using the remotely controlled underwater robot GRALmarine constructed by Bartłomiej Grynda.
  • In November 2016, he was nominated for the 2017 National Geographic Traveler of the Year. 

Below you can see the profile of this dive. It takes about 20-25 minutes to descend, just a few moments on 303 meters depth, and more than six hours of ascending. 

Krzysztof Starnawski's expedition Image Source