As silly as it sounds, and as idiotic as some people thought us to be, James, Diane, Kylie and I headed off to Lake Jindabyne to take our first fin-strokes at altitude and in fresh water. The week before we headed down, we were even expecting to be able to tick the ice-diving box on our logbooks - for the first time in 50 years, Lake Jindabyne decided it was going to ice-over (it doesn't do that even in winter - remember, we're talking about February)!
As it turned out, the weekend turned out to be quite sunny and warm. The surface temperature of the water was a balmy 24 degrees. We thought we were in the tropics!
I have to say we didn't really know what to expect. We knew the water could be very cold. We knew there was a township underneath. We knew visibility could be as bad as a foot (averaging only 2 to 3m). We knew the depth ranged from a few metres to over 50m. From James' research (there are four government agencies that he rang who think we're certifiable), we kind of figured out where the town should lie. The problem was we couldn't find anyone who had dived there and knew the area well, although we knew knew people did. So, there was a bit of educated guesswork involved.
Still, the educated guesswork paid off reasonably well. On our first dive, we found roof shingles and old cars and fence posts and other wreckages. It was quite eerie - there were quite clear patches of water (clear being 2m) and then all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, it would just become pitch black! The first couple of times that happened, shivers ran down my spine. It's a great place to do buoyancy training - you couldn't rest on the bottom - if you tried, you would sink into the silt. I tried a couple of times and managed to bury my hand without any effort. Water temperature was interesting as well - starting at 24 on the surface, by the time we hit 14m, it was 14 degrees and some of us were getting cold! So that ended the dive.
The second dive was even creepier. This was more guesswork than educated! However, it was a fun dive - 14m underwater, we swam through tree tops, avoiding the branches and twigs. But visibility was lower and the patches of black were larger and more frequent.
James and I are planning another trip back. There's plenty more of Lake Jindabyne to explore. And interestingly enough, James discovered in his research that there are plenty of other towns in New South Wales that met a similar fate to Jindabyne, opening up a world of diving opportunities. In fact, for a bit of history and romance, speak to Kevin about his experiences diving on Cleopatra's Palace in Alexandria, Egypt.
(Note: altitude diving requires additional training and different equipment to diving at sea level. Do not attempt to dive at altitude without adequate preparation, training and supervision.)
