Xiao Yuan: ice diver extraordinaire

In a culture where names are meant to signify destiny, Xiao Yuan (肖远) has lived up to his given name 远, which means“distant.” Between late 2010 and early 2011, the Shanghai-born businessman became the first Chinese to scuba dive at the North Pole and Antarctica. His adventures are a far cry from his background as a financier, who spent 10 years working at banking institutions in the US and Hong Kong. These days, he’s back in China, starting a new venture as CFO of an internet company.

Back in college, I traveled to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, where the majestic landscapes converted me into a lifelong enthusiast for outdoor adventure. Later, when I was in the US, I took a trip to Alaska and spent a week sea kayaking at Glacier Bay National Park, and the solitude of the high Arctic opened my heart to polar exploration.

It was more than a decade later, though, when I began exploring seriously the idea of ice diving at the North Pole, as I wanted to try something different in addition to my polar trekking and climbing expeditions. I figured I’d get a unique perspective of the North Pole by diving beneath the floating ice, as only a handful of people in the world had ever done so. It involved a lot of preparation both in terms of equipment and training. For cold water scuba diving, I added not only a new custom-made dry suit and under-garments, but also two sets

"If the diver can’t find the hole they entered through or the hole is closed as a result of ice movement, It’s over"

of state-of-the-art regulators that were less prone to freezing in icy polar conditions. To hone my scuba diving skills in a dry suit, which was quite different from the wet suit that I was used to, I tried various places in Shanghai and Hong Kong but eventually went to Jeju Island in South Korea.

After practicing in Ushuaia, Argentina and Antarctica, I headed for the Arctic Circle Dive Center on Russia’s White Sea to receive special ice diving training. Ice diving is one of the most dangerous forms of scuba diving because you are so isolated from alternative air sources. If the diver can’t find the hole they entered through or the hole is closed as a result of ice movement, it’s over. To mitigate this risk, ice divers are usually connected to a surface tender with a rope, and a second hole is also typically cut in the ice nearby as an emergency exit. Another major risk is that the regulator the diver breathes through can be frozen quickly in the sub-zero temperatures. While the sea water and the air temperature on the coast of Antarctica hovers around zero degrees in February, at the North Pole the sea water is usually minus two degrees celcius and the air around minus 25 degrees in April, which significantly increases the probability of equipment failures and fatal accidents.

As people believe in the business world, high risk and high return have a positive correlation. The time I spent in both the Arctic and Antarctica can simply be summarized as a high point of happiness in my life. In terms of what I saw at the North Pole, there was a marked contrast with what I had experienced while training in Russia, where the water under the ice was dark and gloomy. At the North Pole, it was stunningly bright under the water, and there were various magnificent ice formations clinging to the underside of the pressure ridges, creating an alien world you’d imagine seeing only on another planet.