• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Multinational Divers Take to the Water During Sea Breeze 2010

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS100714-17
7/14/2010

By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class (SW) Gary Keen, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs

ODESSA, Ukraine (NNS) -- Danish, Ukrainian and U.S. Navy divers took to the water for one of many dive evolutions during the multinational exercise Sea Breeze 2010 at the Ukrainian Western Naval Base in Odessa, Ukraine, July 14.

Divers familiarized themselves with each other's equipment, diving techniques and procedures gaining from each other's experience.

"It's excellent working with different nations," said Chief Steel Worker (SCW/DV) Daniel Lowery, officer-in-charge of Underwater Construction Team (UCT) 1. "We are here to become proficient in our job, work with other countries and develop a relationship. All military services travel, so to go and be able to operate with each other is definitely better."

Members from the Danish Navy Dive Academy, Copenhagen; Ukrainian dive team from the Search and Rescue Center of the Ukrainian Navy, Sevastopol; UCT 1, from Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Va.; and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit (EODMU) 8, from Sigonella, Italy, will be training together daily in controlled environments both in port and at sea.

"Today we are going to dive with some of the guys from Ukraine who have never used or tested dive helmets before," said Thomas Frederiksen, exercise participant and diver from the Royal Danish Navy Dive Academy. "Over the next couple of days we will continue training with the Ukraine divers, and we'll do some underwater welding as well."

Surface supplied diving techniques, equipment familiarization, under water welding, salvage operations, ordnance identification and disposal and side scan sonar operations are a few of the events that will be covered during various diving phases of Sea Breeze.

"The training was very interesting," said Ukrainian Navy Senior Diver Tkachenko Mihaylo. "We have many of the same procedures as the other nations, but our equipment is different and it is nice to learn about the different equipment."

Sea Breeze is an invitational combined and joint maritime exercise in the Black Sea with the goals of enhancing Black Sea national maritime security capabilities and improving Black Sea theater security cooperation strategies.

Sea Breeze is the largest exercise this year in the Black Sea including 20 ships, 13 aircraft and more than 1,600 military members from Azerbaijan, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Moldova, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine and United States.