Under the Surface

When you go deep to avoid the crowd and find out you're not the only one here :-D

At least the cold temperatures make up for it with better visibilty under water :-D

Hitting the pause button until next year.
Happy holidays to everybody and may the new year bring you awesome diving opportunities!






TDI - Technical Diving International SDI TDI Central Europe Divesoft

From a visit to the Fiat Topolino at 95m / 320 ft. Wonder if the driver was prepared for a deep dive.

Fall is coming.

The lake of Starnberg offers a few interesting places to dive but the drop off at Allmannshausen is by far the best spot for technical divers.
Diving a bit further from the wall is the wreck of the Josefine at a depth of >80m / 270ft.

Dive loading...




TDI - Technical Diving International Divesoft

Throwback to diving the A Tunnel at Cenote Mayan Blue in Mexico.

Getting ready to plunge!
The surface view is quite the contrast to the looks under water :-D

Photo credit: Željka Kiesecker

Happy to share that I have reached this milestone of 150 meters!
After an extensive training period with the dual rebreather setup, I was able to dive to the bottom of the wall in lake Walchensee and further down towards the basin of the lake.
Thanks to my awesome support team Željka and Frank for having my back!

Divesoft KISS Rebreathers TDI - Technical Diving International SDI TDI Central Europe

The pool is open!
Lake Walchensee is a beautiful place to dive. Especially this dive site, the 'Galerie'. It has a giant wall going down all the way to 120m and offers two car wrecks when coming up for deco.

Bailout loading for the weekend!

Predive chill.
During the summer months, the Liberty Sidemount switches the role from main to bailout rebreather.

Squeezing through the rest of the week and heading for the lake after work!

Now that the top layers of the lake start warming up, it is the perfect time to combine both rebreathers and dial in on the bailout breather skills.
If only it weren't for the pre- and post dive maintenance :-D

Roger lighting up the crystals in Cenote Escondido in the Dead Zone.

Reaching for the weekend be like ...

Floating around the "tire boat".
Urfeld is a dive site at lake Walchensee with many unique boats and other attractions.

Immediately feels like Christmas again!

Some impressions from diving the Felicitas mine earlier this month.
Diving a mine feels like a crossover between cave and wreck. The Felicitas mine offers a huge variety with the remaining equipment and vehicles, rooms that were cleanly cut by giant saw blades and then again blasted areas as well. Even the foreman's office can be visited. Seven hours dive time wasn't even close to see it all and I will be back!

Hang in there, it's almost weekend!

This was supposed to be a Christmas post yet the dive took a different turn...

After around 400 hrs on rebreathers without equipment issues, today the ADV started firing like there's no tomorrow. Shut down the valve and realized that there was a quite a gap where the ADV-membrane should have been... obviously the loop was flooded in seconds and that was the end of the dive. I was glad having enough on my 'experience account' to draw from and manage everything without further issues.
What had happened? Apparently a boltsnap got wedged into the ADV and had ripped off the cover.

Lesson learned? Doesn't matter when, eventually something will happen during a dive. Better stay prepared to manage creative problems as well.

And merry Christmas everybody!

What are the limits of sidemount diving?

This was a setup for a cave with sidemount rebreather and three bailout tanks, as close to the body as possible.

What do you consider a manageable amount of gas you can carry in sidemount and for what kind of dives?