On August 16, the Mir submersion vessels carried out a number of dives in the southern part of Baikal near cape Tolsty. The crew of Mir-1 operated by Anatoly Sagalevich, Hero of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the Technical committee of the Fund for the Protection of Lake Baikal, included James Cameron and Sylvia Earle, a famous biologist and oceanographer. During the dive, Anatoly Sagalevich, on behalf of M.V. Slipenchuk, Chairman of the Board of Guardians of the Fund for the Protection of Lake Baikal gave James Cameron a unique gift – a hydronaut’s watch.

Mir-2 operated by Evgeny Chernyaev started its submersion at 11:55. The vessel crew consisted of Michael McDowell, member of the Acrtic 2007 underwater expedition, and Maria Wilhelm, the author of Avatar: A Field Guide to Pandora. At 12:47 pm Mir-2 reached the depth of 1,270 meters.
At 12:50 local time Mir-1 and Mir-2 had a communication session with Mikhail Slipenchuk, who was on board the special-purpose vessel Metropolia.
Both the submersibles successfully broke surface in 4.5 hours after the start of the dive.