GoneDiving.me

Gone skiing..

Gunnar — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:10:32 +0000

..and this was the result:

On the second day of Christmas my brother and I decided to take his kids for a little fun in the snow. My brother drove the tractor upthe dirtroad through the woods and flattened the snow to make a nice track for us. His kids were on their sleds, and I used my telemark skis. The first run went fine, and we went back up for another run. The cold and mostly dry weather had produced snow light as air, unfortunately not very much of it. I could not resist trying to ski in the powder off the flat road and on the second run I went through the woods. Came back to the road about halfway down, and tried skiing in the powder filled ditch next to the road. Unfortunately the powder hid a few rocks, one for my skis to stop dead in their tracks, and another for my shoulder to land on after flipping forward at full speed.

I have fallen before, but never really seriously. Immediately after trying to get up I knew this was something different. Movement in my shoulder area did not feel right, and was painful. At least keeping things still did not feel that bad. Luckily my brother was on the tractor right behind me and saw the whole thing. He helped me get up and transported me out of the woods, and soon after to the doctor. Doctor sent me to the hospital for an x-ray. The diagnosis was clear, my right collarbone was broken straight off. They gave me some pills and sent me home.

Initially I was told just to keep it still and it would grow in place. However after about a week they called me back for another x-ray. They recommended surgery and wanting a fully functional collarbone I was not hard to convince even if I no longer was in any pain and was able to use my arm slightly. So after another few days they operated on me. They separated the two pieces of the collarbone, put in a metal plate and screwed it all together in its right place.

After surgery:

Thankfully the surgery seems to have gone fine. It has been a week now and I stopped using the sling a few days ago, much faster than after the initial fracture. Looks like my diving holiday in about a month will not be affected! All the time I have on my hands while not being able to dive, ski or work lets me catch up on my “Internet-diving”, and resuscitate this bloggy thingy. So more on my diving in 2010 and plans for 2011 should follow this post!

Road to Plura

Gunnar — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:35:17 +0000

Annually around week 33 there is a gathering of cave divers in northern Norway, and for the second year now I am spending my summer vacation diving cold Norwegian caves. This post however is about getting there. I was originally planning to drive from western to northern Norway in one go, so it was with great joy I arranged some diving on the way with my good buddy Arve and his wife Linn. We had two wrecks and two freshwater dives beore they had to go back home and I continued northwards.

Mixdive on the S/S Oldenburg

Arve and me started off Wednesday with a tech dive to 60m on the wreck S/S Oldenburg in a sidearm of the Sognefjord. Oldenburg is an easy shoredive with a only a small swim out to the bouy from the parking. It also has a very interesting history. It was pretty much a pirate ship during WWI, as a cargoship with consealed cannons it sunk many allied ships. It survived WWI but was sunk during an allied air raid in WWII.

The wreck lies on its side with the port side up. The bow is at about 30m and the propeller around 70m. We descended to the bow and followed a sidepassage down to around the engineroom. There are many details to see while we descended. As with so many other wrecks sinks, toilets and bathtubs of porclain are largely intact.

We had a peek inside the engineroom, some light penetration of the living quarters, forward cargo hold and the bow area. After a few dives on the wreck, I am starting to get a good overview even if the superstructure is quite broken down. We created quite a stir by serving the local marine life some local seafood, and had a quite enjoyable 15min decostop at 6m.

Pit stop at the S/S Wartheland

The next day Linn joined us in Førde and we headed off to Norfjordeid to dive the Wartheland. This is an other cargoship sunk close to shore during WWII. With the stern as the deepest section at 22m the shallow nature of the wreck means it was easy to salvage. The bulk of the ship has was salvaged after the war, but the stern is mostly intact. It lies upright and the boilers, aft cargo hold, propeller and rudder can still be seen.

It was a quite enjoyable dive and well worth the visit.

Submerged history in freshwater

After diving Wartheland we headed inland to a the Norang valley. In 1908 a large rock slide from the surrounding mountains formed a dam that caused the valley to flood and created the Lyngstøllake. The rising water submerged the road and some small houses in the valley.

We set up camp on what remains of the old road, and had dive in the evening. We did a route that took us to the same places I had been to last time I was there. On a small sideroad to the main road we there is a small stone bridge possible to swim under. After swimming under the bridge we swam through a forest of old treas. Crossing over again we came back on the main road and had a look at the foundations of the old houses.

Around dinner we discussed the dive and came to the conclusion that there was a bridge that we had not found. So the next morning after breaking up camp, we went back into the lake and did a search along the main road to look for the other bridge. The main road is quite nice to swim along. It is lined with stone fences in some places, and in other places it is raised from the terrain and has big rocks as safety barriers. After a little bit of searching we found the bridge we were looking for. We swam under it and took some photos before heading back to shore.

This divesite really is one of a kind, and unlike anything else I can think of. Deffinately worth the trip if you are in the region. It is also a very nice place to rinse the gear after a trip to Ålesund!

Accelerated journey

After the dive we went our seperate ways. I continued north, Arve and Linn went back home. Thanks for making the trip more enjoyable guys! The rest of the journey was pretty much uneventful. I reached Trondheim around midnight and fueled by coffe and redbull I went on untill I was too tired to drive. Had a powernap before continuing, and reached Mo i Rana around 11am the next day.

In Norwegian cave country

I have now in the middle of my Full Cave course, and enjoying camping and cavediving in 5c on the polar circle. Have been diving Plura so far, and had a stage dive to the air chamber yesterday. Today I had a dive in Litlåga wich has a few tight restrictions and generally a smaller cave than Plura. Have had little time to write and I have to drive for 20min to get online, but will try to post some more when I get the opportunity.

Going diving.

Gunnar — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 17:59:05 +0000

Started to pack the divemobile for a few weeks of wreck- tech- cavediving and camping