During the weekend we have been performing our monthly catch up with other Scapehander in the area called Sauerland to dive the flooded mines “Christine” and “Schwalefeld”. We were unexpectedly rewarded with a mind blowing picture of flooded slate mine.
Day 1 – Easy “Christine” Dive
I arrived at 10 a.m. at the parking lot at Christine and again it was already full by a lot of non-divers. Nevertheless my friend Jogi and also his student Stefan were already there and I was able to park in front of their cars.
The first view into the entrance is always like coming home. It’s 8 degrees Celsius (46,4 Fahrenheit) during the entire year. Sounds cold however it is the perfect temperature for hot weather outside. And in winter when it’s below zero Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) it is indeed also the perfect temperature.
First view is also always about water level. This slate mine is a closed system. That means no draining. But the slate mountain is like a sieve. So if it rains the water runs between all the slates into the system.
This time it was quite normal which means the maximum depth of the first sole is around 25 meters (~ 82 ft). For a first dive of the weekend pretty nice to start with. Because Jogi had to look for his student I was taking care of myself.
Preparing the gear
First I put on my gear, took my two 12 Liters tanks with 330 bar of Trimix 21/35 and placed additionally an Oxygen tank of 6.8 Liters with 330 bar at 6 Meters and one 6.8 Liters with 330 bar of Trimix Deco gas 50/20 on the end of the incline to the exit at 25 Meters.
The dive was nice and relaxing. We call it the tourist tour. I visited 4 mined rooms and the old rusty tank and surfaced back happy and relaxed after 91 minutes.
The light guides the way
I was the first one of the water out so I changed to normal clothes and waited for Jogi and Stefan to return in case they need some surface support with tanks. So I watched them coming up which is always nice to see because of the lamps.
After they surfaced too we went to our hotel where other Scapehander joined us for dinner and we were having a great evening.
Day 2 – Meeting interesting people at Schwalefeld
After a good breakfast Dirk and I were driving to the slate mine Schwalefeld to meet with Pascale and Reza, also Scapehander friends. They both just got their Rebreather parts back from a technical update. Anyhow they wanted to start on their own today and use a different entrance than we wanted to do. It is crucial to perform proper in-water tests when you have your systems back from an upgrade or revisioning, so we left them on their own.
We also waited for Stefan to arrive. He had to do some guidance for Swedish divers who have not been in Schwalefeld before. It’s good to have an experienced diver (and Instructor) like Stefan who knows a ton about Rebreather diving, the mine and the conditions.
Making new friends in Schwalefeld
The Swedish divers arrived: Sara Banderby, her partner Magnus Määttä and the famous photographer Alex Dawson. It was a huge surprise because we partially knew each other from Social Media for some time now and the welcome was friendly and full of laughs.
Their task was to take pictures of Sara in the huge mined room which we call “the hall”.
This room starts at a depth of around 38-40 meters and goes up to 13 meters and is massively wide. On a normal dive you can’t see the other side when entering the hall. But this experienced team has proven so many times that they exactly know what they do. We were excited like little kids however we didn’t want to distract Stefan and the team so Dirk and I continued with our plan to have a longer dive in the green system and then jump over to the red system of the mine.
The plan was to dive around two hours and then have around 45-50 Minutes decompression time. After a really relaxing 110 Minuted we decided to visit the team in the hall to see what they are doing. What we experienced there was on of the most impressive things I’ve personally seen so far. We entered the hall from the deepest point and experienced bright light and blue-ish water. The entire mining room was illuminated with one lamp of 65.000 lumens and another one with 35.000 lumens. Sara was swimming around and Magnus and Alex were at the top of the hall taking pictures, changing light etc.
Dirk and I looked at each other and started smiling as bright as our Rebreather let us.
Mind blowing picture of flooded slate mine
We ascended to the team and Sara was waving at us. I asked her how she likes it and she was showing by gestures and face that she loves it. So Dirk and I swam around a little bit and enjoyed the massive illuminated hall which we dived so many times and never saw it that way.
After a few minutes we decided to leave the team, not distracting them any further and started with our decompression to the exit. After the other team surfaced too Alex told us that he took some pictures while we joined them.
We asked Alex, Sara and Magnus if they wanted to join us for dinner and had an amazing evening. One highlight of course is always the Chocolate-Soufflé, but for us was the photo Alex showed us during dinner.
So I’m really happy to be in this amazing photo and I will follow the invitation of the three to visit them in Sweden for some diving there for sure!
On Day 3 Dirk and I had again an amazing relaxing dive in Schwalefeld for another 107 Minutes. It indeed was a very diversified weekend with great dives, new friends, amazing food and an amazing outcome photo-wise.
If you have questions to mine diving or Technical Diving in general feel free to reach out to me via my contact site if you have any questions.
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