Neufelder See (47o52'11"N 16o23'13"E) is a small lake in Austria, which is equipped specially for divers. It is close to the Hungarian border and is a favourite target for many Hungarian diver schools. It is 1km long, 300 to 400meter wide and approximately 20 meters deep. This small lake is ideal for dive training, lake diving even for beginners. The visibility varies and it is usually between 3 and 5 meters depending on the number of divers.
This dive was my first dive after my OWD exam. During my training the dive instructor (Klári Berta) promised us to have a lake diving in Neufelder before the exam taking place in Dorog but the plan failed because of bad weather and cold water. She recommended not to dive into a lake below 15oC for such a fresh diver as I was before the exam. This time, four weeks later, however the weather was much better and I could not resist to join the team led by Klári visiting Neufelder.
I also invited an old friend of mine, Magdi and also her friend, András. Magdi and I were school mates during our secondary school studies so we knew each other for 25 years. We recently realized that we both dive. Her significan other also joinded us. I helped them to join us, arrange the insurance and they gave me the ride from Budapest to Neufeld.
We started to pack at 7am in Budapest at Lagoon DC, who provided the equipment, into a van all bottles, BCDs and other appliances. We started 8am and we arrived approximately 10am at Neufelder. To dive there you have to buy 7EUR ticket, and although there is a road inside you are not allowed to drive into. Thus we had to bring the bottles (two bottles for each, but we, boys made more turns for the ladies) a few hundred meters. At the shore of the lake we dressed and walked into the water. We walked a few meter and then swam to the dive buoy where we sank.
We made two dives. The first one was about 10 to 11 meter deep. We swam following the lake bottom. This dive was nothing special. I enjoyed a lot my new computer that showed me the actual depth and I realized that it helped me a lot to manage the BCD to make bouyancy easier. Other than this there was nothing special during the dive. We have seen a sunk boat, some fishes and the leading wires that helped navigation.
During the second dive we went down to 5 meter. We stayed there for a few minutes making pictures and swimming across the tube that is implemented to help beginners practive bouyancy and swimming, while Klári and an advanced diver went to the lake bottom to 20meter. After that we made a shallow ride on the lake bed following the wires from 5 meter to 3 meter in the next 20 minutes.
At the start of this ride we have seen the pine trees that were used by under-ice divers at Christmas. These trees remain green in the cold water keeping their pin leafs and provide great shadow for some fishes to hide. It is also a great place for the resident pike to hunt. It was a lot of fun to get very close to the pike with the camera. I realized how alien I was in the water. The pike did not mind me being there. I was something totally strange for him (or her?). Nothing like a diver eats pike and pike does not eat anything that resembles to a diver. We were something alien, estrange entity that did not affect the fish's life. Or at least it was it believed. I tried not to interfere with it, not to touch or disturb, but later somebody from our group waived so close that the pike could feel the water stream and swam away.
Afterall it was a nice dive experience.
Some selected pictures of the dive:
