I enjoy reading about other people's experiences of freediving, mainly because I've only ever freedived with a very small group of people, almost exclusively in one place, so it's always interesting to learn about what freediving means to others. I had a good day of freediving today, so I thought I'd share with you a day in my life as a freediver!...
[Please excuse any grammatical, typographical or spelling errors! English is my second language - this is my excuse!]
Today I was diving with another DB member (bam bam), whose real name is Sam. He is a university student from England and a natural freediver. We were going to dive in North Wales, as we usually do once a week. The site is called Dorothea, a flooded slate quarry which dates back nearly 200 years. It was named after the owner's wife. These days, it is treated essentially as common ground. There are some legal issues over ownership that I'm not even going to begin to explain! Until about 1970 it was one enormous hole in the ground. Once the pumps were finally shut down, the water level rose to match the local water table, leaving a 110m deep puddle in the middle of Snowdonia National Park. To set the scene, it is situated amongst some large hills, and visible from mount Snowdon, the highest peak in England and Wales. The drive in takes you along a rough track that winds its way between vast slate waste tips which cover acres of land. In fact, the slate tips are so large they almost completely form the horizon whilst within the quarry complex.
When you finally arrive at the site, you drive along the edge of a 25m high cliff , below which lies 40m of water. Welcome to the 'shallow end'. To give you an impression of the size, it is roughly 400m in diameter and about 1 mile in circumference. All around you see huge mounds of broken waste slate, derelict buildings, and wooded areas. Usually it's very quiet and extremely atmospheric. Some people describe the place as being quite eery. The silence is only broken by wind blowing in the trees and ravens calling from above. More often than not, the weather is atrocious, with rain and wind being blown in from the Irish sea. Occasionally, during the summer months, the sunshine makes it seem rather pleasant, but still intimidating nonetheless.
At the impromtu parking area, situated at the natural ground level, you look down into the quarry. The water level lies about 20m below the natural ground level, and the quarry is virtually surrounded by sheer cliffs, some of which are over 90m in height from ground level to the quarry bottom. An extremely steep track leads down to the water's edge.
Today the weather was cold and gloomy, but it wasn't raining and we were very happy about this because there is absolutely no shelter from the wind or rain. Ah, God loves the infantry! Lately, I have been changing into my farmer-johns before leaving the house because I live nearby, but Sam didn't have this option since he had to endure a 3 hour early morning train journey over from England. Unfortunately, the water temperature had dropped by 2 degrees within a week, due to some very cold weather, leaving us with a surface temperature of 6 degrees. There was no two ways about it - this was going to hurt!...
We talked over our plans for the day and in the end decided to do some recreational freediving, rather than training for depth as we usually do. Sam only has a 5mm Picasso suit, and is now beginning to feel the cold, more than myself in my 7mm Picasso. We thought that it would make a nice change - to explore new places in the quarry. Having got changed, we made our way down the water's edge, put on our monofins, and gently slipped into the 6 degree water.
The first port of call was the '40m ledge'. This point is close to the centre of the quarry and is often used by technical divers to help them navigate their way to the bottom at 110m. I have many old photos of the ledge taken when the quarry was dry, but have never actually dived to that point before, so I thought it would be interesting to dive down and compare what I saw with the photos.
Having reached the position of the 40m ledge Sam had a problem with his Sphera mask, and had to spend over 5mins taking it apart and putting it together again. Something that he could only manage without his gloves on! Having a major mask leak in those conditions didn't bear thinking about, so he made sure that it was ok before putting it on again. Once Sam was happy we began our warm-ups, consisting of only 2 empty lung dives to 10m. Usually we spend more time warming up for deep dives, but considering the temperature, we felt that we just wanted to get going. Sam dived first and reached the 40m ledge, only to find that someone had placed a sign indicating the depth. It was a 40mph highway speed limit sign!!
On the way down to meet Sam, I could see that the visibility was rather good, for Dorothea. The water is green in colour and generally very clear. With depth, the green colour fades slowly darker and beyond 60m becomes the deepest black imaginable. Now it was my turn to visit the ledge! I made my way down with slow monofin strokes, and looked down at 30m to see the ledge coming into view 10m below me. Even at that depth, it was very clear, and oversaw a vast area as I sank down. At the bottom, I looked around in search for a small slate hut I had seen in the photos, but failed to find it in the gloom. Had the sun been shining, perhaps the light penetration would have been sufficiently strong to allow me to find the hut. But as it was another overcast day in North Wales, it was not to be.
The hut was used as shelter by the workmen during their lunch breaks and as blast houses to protect themselves from dynamite blasts. There are a number of such huts scattered around underwater. When viewing these structures, you a reminded of the hard work the quarrymen endured everyday. Each piece of slate was ultimately handled by hand, in all weathers. The work was extremely dangerous and many died from falling debris, and even more from lung diseases in their old age, including my grandfather who worked in the slate industry as a young man before the first world war broke out.
It was time to ascent. During my first few strokes I felt heavier than expected, and only then realised that I forgot to pack, as I usually do for dives over about 35m, but it was no big deal. I was met by Sam at 15m, and we broke the surface together back into the cold winter air. We briefly discussed what we had seen and I visualised what I saw in relation to the old photographs. Sam dived to the ledge once again, and also failed to see the hut. I began my second dive to the ledge to resume my search for the hut, and looked out for a railway track that I had also seen in the photos. Unable to find neither, I again began my ascent, feeling lighter this time, as I had remembered to pack a little before diving.
continued....
[Please excuse any grammatical, typographical or spelling errors! English is my second language - this is my excuse!]
Today I was diving with another DB member (bam bam), whose real name is Sam. He is a university student from England and a natural freediver. We were going to dive in North Wales, as we usually do once a week. The site is called Dorothea, a flooded slate quarry which dates back nearly 200 years. It was named after the owner's wife. These days, it is treated essentially as common ground. There are some legal issues over ownership that I'm not even going to begin to explain! Until about 1970 it was one enormous hole in the ground. Once the pumps were finally shut down, the water level rose to match the local water table, leaving a 110m deep puddle in the middle of Snowdonia National Park. To set the scene, it is situated amongst some large hills, and visible from mount Snowdon, the highest peak in England and Wales. The drive in takes you along a rough track that winds its way between vast slate waste tips which cover acres of land. In fact, the slate tips are so large they almost completely form the horizon whilst within the quarry complex.
When you finally arrive at the site, you drive along the edge of a 25m high cliff , below which lies 40m of water. Welcome to the 'shallow end'. To give you an impression of the size, it is roughly 400m in diameter and about 1 mile in circumference. All around you see huge mounds of broken waste slate, derelict buildings, and wooded areas. Usually it's very quiet and extremely atmospheric. Some people describe the place as being quite eery. The silence is only broken by wind blowing in the trees and ravens calling from above. More often than not, the weather is atrocious, with rain and wind being blown in from the Irish sea. Occasionally, during the summer months, the sunshine makes it seem rather pleasant, but still intimidating nonetheless.
At the impromtu parking area, situated at the natural ground level, you look down into the quarry. The water level lies about 20m below the natural ground level, and the quarry is virtually surrounded by sheer cliffs, some of which are over 90m in height from ground level to the quarry bottom. An extremely steep track leads down to the water's edge.
Today the weather was cold and gloomy, but it wasn't raining and we were very happy about this because there is absolutely no shelter from the wind or rain. Ah, God loves the infantry! Lately, I have been changing into my farmer-johns before leaving the house because I live nearby, but Sam didn't have this option since he had to endure a 3 hour early morning train journey over from England. Unfortunately, the water temperature had dropped by 2 degrees within a week, due to some very cold weather, leaving us with a surface temperature of 6 degrees. There was no two ways about it - this was going to hurt!...
We talked over our plans for the day and in the end decided to do some recreational freediving, rather than training for depth as we usually do. Sam only has a 5mm Picasso suit, and is now beginning to feel the cold, more than myself in my 7mm Picasso. We thought that it would make a nice change - to explore new places in the quarry. Having got changed, we made our way down the water's edge, put on our monofins, and gently slipped into the 6 degree water.
The first port of call was the '40m ledge'. This point is close to the centre of the quarry and is often used by technical divers to help them navigate their way to the bottom at 110m. I have many old photos of the ledge taken when the quarry was dry, but have never actually dived to that point before, so I thought it would be interesting to dive down and compare what I saw with the photos.
Having reached the position of the 40m ledge Sam had a problem with his Sphera mask, and had to spend over 5mins taking it apart and putting it together again. Something that he could only manage without his gloves on! Having a major mask leak in those conditions didn't bear thinking about, so he made sure that it was ok before putting it on again. Once Sam was happy we began our warm-ups, consisting of only 2 empty lung dives to 10m. Usually we spend more time warming up for deep dives, but considering the temperature, we felt that we just wanted to get going. Sam dived first and reached the 40m ledge, only to find that someone had placed a sign indicating the depth. It was a 40mph highway speed limit sign!!
On the way down to meet Sam, I could see that the visibility was rather good, for Dorothea. The water is green in colour and generally very clear. With depth, the green colour fades slowly darker and beyond 60m becomes the deepest black imaginable. Now it was my turn to visit the ledge! I made my way down with slow monofin strokes, and looked down at 30m to see the ledge coming into view 10m below me. Even at that depth, it was very clear, and oversaw a vast area as I sank down. At the bottom, I looked around in search for a small slate hut I had seen in the photos, but failed to find it in the gloom. Had the sun been shining, perhaps the light penetration would have been sufficiently strong to allow me to find the hut. But as it was another overcast day in North Wales, it was not to be.
The hut was used as shelter by the workmen during their lunch breaks and as blast houses to protect themselves from dynamite blasts. There are a number of such huts scattered around underwater. When viewing these structures, you a reminded of the hard work the quarrymen endured everyday. Each piece of slate was ultimately handled by hand, in all weathers. The work was extremely dangerous and many died from falling debris, and even more from lung diseases in their old age, including my grandfather who worked in the slate industry as a young man before the first world war broke out.
It was time to ascent. During my first few strokes I felt heavier than expected, and only then realised that I forgot to pack, as I usually do for dives over about 35m, but it was no big deal. I was met by Sam at 15m, and we broke the surface together back into the cold winter air. We briefly discussed what we had seen and I visualised what I saw in relation to the old photographs. Sam dived to the ledge once again, and also failed to see the hut. I began my second dive to the ledge to resume my search for the hut, and looked out for a railway track that I had also seen in the photos. Unable to find neither, I again began my ascent, feeling lighter this time, as I had remembered to pack a little before diving.
continued....
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