Frau A and I are basically integrating our portfolio of fun activities. I have done more hiking and skiing in the past... then she took a ski course last winter and now asks to go on the black diamond slopes! We now hit the hiking trails together too (and she loves window shopping at the North Face and Columbia stores for outdoor fashions). Likewise, she has had her open water SCUBA diving card for many years, and logged dozens & dozens of dives... so I signed up for the course to get my open water certification.
In the last two weekends, I took the practical portion of the course -- the tests in open water. Of course, open water means in-a-lake here in Munich. Officially, we were diving "at altitude" (over 600 meters here) rather than sea level, so the dive tables are technically not valid. But since I live here, they consider my body to have acclimated, so no problem.
The issue was the timing. Late October. The water was 12 degrees C (54 degrees F)! My class (four students in total) not only put on the thickest wetsuits available, but put another "shorty" wetsuit on over them! Once we got in, it wasn't too bad, actually. Water quality is excellent here - really clear - but you can kick up a lot of sediment when swimming near the bottom.
Here is a photo of my instructor (standing, in the lighter jacket) talking with other instrutors already in the water. Looks cold, huh? This was at Starnberger See the first weekend. On a clear day, you can see the Alps in the background, but there were too many clouds on that morning.
;)
The second weekend we went to a small lake/large pond called Echinger Weiher. At least the water was warmer than the air, as you can see by the mist. Some people have seen catfish over 3 feet long here, but nothing that day. What was neat was the plants at the bottom give off some gas that looks like fog in the water. They do claim to have a "wreck" to see as well - an Ikea shopping cart that someone threw in! But we missed that as well, because we had a bunch of tests to do. Maybe next time.
;)
Well, I passed and have the open water card now. I'll try to keep up with Frau A on holiday when we will do some diving. Hope to post some pics of that too for a future post.