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2011 marks another successful year for the Karst Odyssey project. This year exploration in Bastasica cave continued with the same drive and determination. The logistical challenge for 2011 was to install an adequate and secure habitat at Bastasica cave the 6m depth to allow two RB divers to decompress in relative comfort and re-hydrate and re-energize with ease. It was our long standing project partner, the diving club BUK who took the ownership of the habitat installation. The BUK member and local GUE diver Dusan Milosevic took upon himself the design of the habitat. The design allowed for the flexibility to move the habitat in the water column. The habitat was also portable in nature meaning that we could easily remove the habitat from its steel shell. After meeting in Banja Luka with the team on the 17th July we departed to Drvar on the 18th July. This year we had two visiting divers on the project; JP Bresser and Matej Simonic. The plan was to continue the exploration of the cave and to shoot some underwater footage. After 5 days of exploration and video shoots, Bastasica cave finally revealed its secret. 800m from the source the cave started to rise from 60m to surface revealing a large air filled chamber. Exploration divers surfaced in a chamber with a spectacular 30m high dome and 15m high cliff with a waterfall. It became very apparent that climbing over a smooth limestone cliff to continue the exploration will not be possible at this stage. The alternative options of looking at the survey and potential existence of sinkholes that will connect into this system needed to be considered first. The remaining few days the team continued to shoot underwater and surface video with a view of making another video documenting this magnificent karst object, surrounding villages, its people and rich history of the region. During our project we were fortunate enough to have a visit from the Drvar mayor. She was intrigued by our activities, however, she soon realised the importance of our work and wanted to learn more. Hopefully her familiarity with the project's objective will make next year's access permit application somewhat easier process.


In the second week we visited Bunica cave in the Mostar region that was last visited by the project back in 2003. This cave often suffers from poor visibility and it was also a site of high military activity during the 90s Bosnia conflict. The site is infrequently visited, however, the area did receive an extensive mine clearance and it is diligently sign posted. We drove as far as we could near the river Bunica, some 500m from the source. This slow flowing river was to be our equipment ferrying highway for the duration of our exploration effort. This cave was explored by the local cave divers from the Neretva club and we received some survey data from them. Like most caves in this region this one started going deep relatively quickly, the mouth of the cave was visible from 42m depth. Our team was greeted with 5-6m visibility which seems to have shown some improvements deeper we ventured. Bunica was explored to 318m distance at 97m depth. The cave is showing signs of going shallower and it will be a focus of our 2012 project.


After the project the first GUE Cave 1 class was held in Bosnia and we take this opportunity to welcome to the project Brane Radjevic as a GUE C1 diver who has been painstakingly supporting the project for number of years. We again extend our gratitude to both Banja Luka diving club BUK and the adventure club Neretva for their continual support. A special thanks goes to Dusan Milosevic for his ingenious habitat design and Boris Trninic the project director for his ongoing logistical support and partnership.








Project divers from left to right: Dusan Milosevic, Hugh Reid and Bob Cooper

In 2010 exploration efforts in Bosnia & Herzegovina have continued. The Karst Odyssey team members spent two weeks exploring and mapping existing project locations as well as visiting new locations. We were especially excited by the new team additions. Two Bosnian GUE C1 divers, Emir Memic and Dusan Milosevic trained by Christophe Le Maillot, joined this year’s effort and provided invaluable logistical support and diving assistance. It was a great pleasure to see the local GUE community, attached to the local project, grow year on year.

































In the first week team spent first 3 days visiting already explored caves to ensure that we collect the outstanding data from 2008. Due to poor cave conditions and some permit complications we were unable to complete the exploration of the source of Zdena, Oko and Dabar back in 2009. However this year we were ready to explore the final leads and obtain the much needed video and photographic footage.

For the second week the team moved to the Herzegovina region. The region is characterized by dry treeless massifs and the abundance of karst objects. Like with the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina it was essential to connect with local guides as the danger of rogue land mines is too great to ignore. Our host for the second week was adventure club Neretva from Mostar run by Esad Humo, local cave explorer and adventurer. More updates in the Exploration section.

Karst Odyssey Team is a non-profit group dedicated to underwater cave exploration. The team's research and exploration focuses at the area of Dinaric Karst belt streching through the Balkans peninsula. The team consists of explorers from all around the world, with team members participating from as far as Mexico and UK.

The extended team consists of:

Boris Trninic - Project Director, Surface Video
Renato Raseta - Project Coordinator, Exploration Diver, Underwater Video, UW Photography, Survey
Christophe Le Maillot - Exploration Diver, Survey
Hugh Reid - Exploration Diver, Survey
Bob Cooper - Exploration Diver, Survey
Dusan Milosevic - Project Photographer and Support Diver
Dr Jeremy Kent - Exploration Diver, Underwater Photography, Survey
Richard Walker - Exploration Diver, Underwater Video
Branislav Radevic - Support Diver, Logistics
Drago Teinovic - Safety Officer, Support Diver
Sasa Borjanovic - Webmaster and Support Diver
Momir Majkic - Suface Manager
Anes Halkic - Logistics
Fred Devos - Exploration Diver, Survey, Cave Cartography
Emir Memic - Support Diver
Esad Humo - Logistics
Andrea Marassich - Exploration Diver, Survey

The team's efforts in the last four years have been focused on the karst region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) is a small country (51 129 km2) in the mid-western Balkans. Most of the country is mountainous with over 40% of the area in the karst regions of Dinaride mountain range which is stretching in general direction Northwest-Southeast in the southern part of the country, mostly in Herzegovina. As a result rather complicated underground connections are found there. Many creaks, small streams and even rivers are disappearing in sinkholes and reappearing with another name in the springs on a lower altitude. The rivers of B&H belong to either Black Sea (Danube) catchment or Adriatic Sea catchment. Most of the rivers in the karstic region drain towards Adriatic Sea.

Two types of aquifers are found in B&H, namely:

- alluvial and
- karstic

In the first category alluviums of the rivers Sava, Una and Drina are most interesting in international
terms, while in the second category karstic catchments of Cetina (Croatian river), Neretva and mainly
Trebišnjica are most important ones. Since country’s independence, practically all of the bigger catchments became
internationally shared and most of them have parts in other countries, namely Croatia and Serbia and
Montenegro. Since Dayton peace agreement in 1995 B&H is divided into 2 entities (Bosnian Federation
and “Republic of Srpska”) and one district.

Many of the underground systems have seen extensive exploration in the last 40 years, however, these connections were mainly accomplished by means of colouring water by tracers.