A US Coast Guard diver recently got promoted under the frigid waters of Antarctica.
Casey Connors had his promotion ceremony to Petty Officer First Class conducted off the icebreaker Polar Star in McMurdo Sound.
The Polar Star is in the region in support of the annual Operation Deep Freeze, a joint service, interagency support operation for the National Science Foundation, which manages the US Antarctic Program.
A regulator attached to a piece of scuba gear froze over aboard the Polar Star.
John Liang is the News Editor at DeeperBlue.com. He first got the diving bug while in High School in Cairo, Egypt, where he earned his PADI Open Water Diver certification in the Red Sea off the Sinai Peninsula. Since then, John has dived in a volcanic lake in Guatemala, among white-tipped sharks off the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, and other places including a pool in Las Vegas helping to break the world record for the largest underwater press conference.