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Exercise Paddington Diamond was a joint Bolivian-British-Swiss scuba diving expedition to Lake Titicaca in 1987. ==Background== In early 1987 the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) arranged a group of adventure training exercises for military personnel in the high Andes of Peru and Bolivia. These exercises were identified by the group name ‘Paddington’ (a reference to Paddington Bear, a fictional children’s character created by author Michael Bond and said to be from Peru). Under that umbrella were a number of expedition groups pursuing different activities: hiking, caving etc. The designations identifying individual groups were ‘Paddington’ followed by the name of a geometric shape. The caving group in Peru was ‘Paddington Triangle’. The diving expedition to the Bolivian waters of Lake Titicaca was Paddington Diamond. Exercise Paddington Diamond was a collaborative venture hosted by the Bolivian Navy out of their San Pedro naval base in the Strait of Tiquina, Lake Titicaca. This is the highest navigable lake in the world at an altitude of 3,810 m (12,500 feet). The Bolivian Navy had a history of diving in the lake and wished to keep up to date its understanding of the technical and medical aspects of diving at such extreme altitudes. The purpose of Exercise Paddington Diamond was to work with the navy to test under field conditions the latest generation of dive computers and the high altitude decompression algorithms they used. In line with this objective Professor Albert Bühlmann of the University of Zürich, the world’s leading expert on diving at altitude, provided the expedition with new decompression tables for diving up to 4,500m above sea level. Through Professor Bühlmann’s contacts with Swiss instrument manufacturers the expedition’s two models of diving computer were pre-programmed with these latest calculations. The new tables had been verified in a decompression chamber in Zürich but had not yet been evaluated in open water. A subsidiary objective of Paddington Diamond was to use the planned dive programme to increase understanding of the Lake Titicaca environment by conducting underwater surveys of localised regions to seek submerged Inca or other ruins, and by undertaking detailed collections of animal and plant life using the precision only possible with the use of scuba techniques. The British party comprised diving personnel from a range of British army regiments and from the Royal Air Force but to support the expedition’s objectives a number of civilian specialists were also recruited. These included an expert in dive computers and high altitude dive tables from the University of Zürich; a doctor with expertise in diving medicine and a nurse, both from Geneva (to support the Bolivian naval doctor and British army doctor already on the team); an equipment specialist from the British Sub-Aqua Club; and a diver from the Natural History Museum in London as expedition biologist. This took the British/Swiss contingent to 16 individuals. The Bolivian Navy provided a commanding officer, a physician with expertise in high altitude medicine, four divers, two dive launches with crews, and full logistical support in the form of equipment, security personnel and extensive camp facilities. They also brought local knowledge and public outreach capabilities to the team. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Exercise Paddington Diamond」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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