In januari I was asked if I wanted to join a team to make some pictures in an opalmine in Slowakia, the biggest of the world. I did not hesitate and said yes.
So last week my buddy and I loaded the car and we drove the first day about 1100 km to Poland. The next day we had to drive another 350 km to Slowakia to the hotel we slept. The last 350 km took 6 hours due to small roads and going over mountains. But it was a nice way to drive. We looked on arrival at the mine. That was closed, but we found some other old entrances and took some pictures. In the evening we met the photographer from Belgium and we discussed how we could assemble the flashes on the cylinders.
In the restaurant they did not speak English and the card was only in the Slowakian language. But we ordered some nice dinner.
The next morning we met our guide and drove to the mine. Helmets where required.
It was a 300m walk through tunnels and then a 100 steps stairs down to the water. So it was not easy to bring all our divestuff there, but we managed. In the mine the temperature is whole year 4-5 degrees and the watertemperature was 4 C with a Ph of 3. So the water was acid. The humidity of air in the mine is 98-99%.
Because of a lot of minerals the walls in the mine have lot's of colors. We see some bats too.
The mine has 22km of handmade tunnels and 5km of them are flooded.
We do 2 dives a day. Divetime around 60 minutes, but 1 dive was 80. Total number of dives 5 in 3 days.
The visibility of the mine is unlimited, it is like above water. So strange. But one bad finkick and you get a siltout.
On some places, iron is 'leaking' out of the wals. It looks so strange, and the smallest disturbance will break this. It looks a little bit like made by spiders.
There are such a lot of details to be seen. Every dive we dive different tunnels. The max depth we reach is 36m. We dived most on the 26m level.
We where the first Dutch divers in this mine and the first Belgium diver. I have dived serval mines, but this one was different from the others. It was absoluty worth this 1500km drive one way. Much better than 'colorfull fish on a reef'
So last week my buddy and I loaded the car and we drove the first day about 1100 km to Poland. The next day we had to drive another 350 km to Slowakia to the hotel we slept. The last 350 km took 6 hours due to small roads and going over mountains. But it was a nice way to drive. We looked on arrival at the mine. That was closed, but we found some other old entrances and took some pictures. In the evening we met the photographer from Belgium and we discussed how we could assemble the flashes on the cylinders.
In the restaurant they did not speak English and the card was only in the Slowakian language. But we ordered some nice dinner.
The next morning we met our guide and drove to the mine. Helmets where required.
It was a 300m walk through tunnels and then a 100 steps stairs down to the water. So it was not easy to bring all our divestuff there, but we managed. In the mine the temperature is whole year 4-5 degrees and the watertemperature was 4 C with a Ph of 3. So the water was acid. The humidity of air in the mine is 98-99%.
Because of a lot of minerals the walls in the mine have lot's of colors. We see some bats too.
The mine has 22km of handmade tunnels and 5km of them are flooded.
We do 2 dives a day. Divetime around 60 minutes, but 1 dive was 80. Total number of dives 5 in 3 days.
The visibility of the mine is unlimited, it is like above water. So strange. But one bad finkick and you get a siltout.
On some places, iron is 'leaking' out of the wals. It looks so strange, and the smallest disturbance will break this. It looks a little bit like made by spiders.
There are such a lot of details to be seen. Every dive we dive different tunnels. The max depth we reach is 36m. We dived most on the 26m level.
We where the first Dutch divers in this mine and the first Belgium diver. I have dived serval mines, but this one was different from the others. It was absoluty worth this 1500km drive one way. Much better than 'colorfull fish on a reef'
