Check out Scuba Diving in China – Qian Dao Lake (Part 1) for the preceding article to this one on the following link:
https://indopacificimages.com/articles/?p=516
Scuba Diving in China Part II
From the hotel it was a 20 minute drive to the lakeside area where we were to kit up and, for those of us who were diving on the Lion City, board the “dive boats” to take us out on the lake.
The area we were using to kit up looked like it would eventually be the driveway to a well heeled local’s weekend lakeside retreat.
The dive boats were local fishing boats, who are apparently taking advantage of the laws of supply & demand, to charge very high rates to use them because there is simply no alternative.
The rest of the weekend’s participants were using the trip to Qian Dao lake to complete certification dives & exercises from the shore area.
Those of us who were diving the Lion City boarded the dive boats and chugged out to the dive site, guided by Leigh Chan of Big Blue Diving and his GPS. It was very peacefull out on the lake, almost serene in a sense, because apart from a large ship about a km away we were the only people out there.
When we arrived at the dive location we were given a good briefing by Leigh and warned that the visibility may be quite bad, then it was into the water and after a quick OK all round, we started our descent. At 10m I could tell that this was going to be a different dive as it was going dark rapidly, at about 20m I was no longer able to see my gauges and shortly after my descent halted as I landed in what felt like deep and very soft silt…..
At that point in time I have to say that I was a little concerned – I appeared to have zero visibility, my buddies had dissapeared during the descent, I was a very long way from any possible support and I was wondering how to explain all this to my wife, should I ever see her again.
I managed to turn the light on one of my strobes and by manouvering the strobe right next to my face and holding my gauges very close to my mask I was able to see that I was at 28m depth. My immediate thoughts were not entirely positive, but I thought follow the rules and wait for a minute or two to see if my buddies find me…. What I should have done, given the fact that I had brought my underwater camera gear all the way from Australia to photograph Qian Dao Lake, was take a photograph – but at that point in time my self preservation instinct had overcome any creative impulse! But let me recreate the scene with the following “artist’s impression”:
I subsequently returned safely to the surface and did another two dives that day, the second being a complete replication of the first but without the camera, and the third a kind of navigation exercise following a bearing Leigh Chan provided to get us at the Lion City. I was diving that time with a nice lady from Canada who suggested we hold hands on the way down to avoid the inevitable separation.
On arrival back down on the lake bottom we commenced the navigation exercise – which was not easy in almost zero visibility – and after about 5 minutes of following the bearing we literally bumped into a brick wall. Carefully moving sideways down the wall we found a corner and carried onwards on the bearing, only to suddenly realise that we may well be inside a building!
It was at that point in time we managed to signal to each other that we should go up and very carefully started our ascent hoping to hit a roof or other obstruction.
Within 5m we knew that our path to the surface was clear and to great relief made a controlled ascent and safety stop at 5m before getting back to the boat in general agreement that the diving was over for the day and for me – well that was it for the whole weekend as I saw no enjoyment in doing it again.
On the boat on the way to back to shore it became obvious why the underwater visibility was so bad, when the fishermen explained that the large boat in the distance was actually a dredger…. no wonder it was zero visibility on the bottom!
To be continued….
If you enjoyed this post and are a member of any of the social networking sites below, please click on the relevant icon as it helps me with this site.
Don