COLOMBO, 20 July 2021 (TON): Even though it is seen as a fascinating thing to glide around enjoying the underwater sights, diving entails some risk. Banishing all these risks aside, a diving officer of the Sri Lanka Navy together with his buddy diver set a new deep-sea diving record on 17th July 2021.

Incidentally, Commander Nishantha Balasooriya, the Command Diving Officer at Naval Dockyard Trincomalee, along with his buddy, Able Diver WWNP Sandaruwan set a new record plunging an astonishing depth of 100 meters off the Elephant Island, Trincomalee, while bringing a lot of credit to the Navy.

To accomplish this milestone in the annals of Sri Lanka Navy, both the divers stayed well-prepared with a number of practice dives, a 73 meter (242 feet) dive on 15th March and subsequently another 75 meter (246 feet) dive on 13th July, prior to their record breaking achievement. As such, both of them were in good physical and mental shape before the arduous task to dive as down as 100m.

When the day finally arrived, Commander Nishantha Balasooriya and Able Diver WWNP Sandaruwan were up to the task with some of the most essential pieces of dive equipment which included tri-mix air (Helium, Oxygen and Nitrogen mixture) along with manual depth gauging recorded in decompression charts. Both the divers were accompanied by a support party up to a depth of 40 meters and ultimately their successful achievement wrote a new chapter in Sri Lanka Navy diving.