The lake is located 47o53'22.75"N 17o09'22.54"E. This is actually a point inside the lake, but I choose this very point (as defined by Google Earth) because this corner of the lake was where we dove.
The lake is a gravel mine lake with a depth of more than 30m. The surrounding is wild: there is no dive center there, no air refill, no toilet, no any building. Actually there is nothing but gravel floor and some muddy roads that lead to the lake and the mine.
The lake is private property and thus you have to pay 4EUR for the services if you want to dive. The price varies from time to time depending on the mood of the fish guard, who collects the money as his part time job. If you pay he won't beat you. I believe this is all the service you may expect.
At the south corner of the lake there is a mine wreck. This huge wreck was a conveyor of approximately 50m long. The top of the wreck is 8m deep, the bottom is at 32m. It is mostly steal, but there are some wood parts. The wreck is contorted a bit and the floating tanks of it are opened if someone wanted it deliberately sunk. There are mussels all over the steal parts.
Divers can get into the water walking in and following a wire leading to the wreck. This path is clean of flora, the lake floor is covered by small stones. These stones partially prevent the mud from the lake floor to be stirred up when divers get into the water and the visibility remains 2 to 3m during the days. Around the wreck the visibility is 6 to 8m, and I experienced more than 10m visibility spotting an abandoned white sport bag on the lake floor in 32m depth.
The group, Atlantisz DC, I joined for this dive I met during my previous dive at lake Palatinus, Dorog a week before. They arrived there together with family Saturday diving a few dives, setting tents for the night. They had tanks, suits, BCDs, and oxygen in the van. I arrived a few minutes after nine a clock Sunday morning according to schedule. Atlantisz provided the suit, the BCD, lead weight and the tank. I had my ABC. We were prepared for a cold dive and thus I got a shorty and a 6mm titanium dress above. The BCD was in perfect condition. This time I also put gloves on.
The first dive was planned to be a shallow one to test the water and the wreck. We went to the top of the wreck, floated above and swam around the northern part of it heading back to the shore. The water was quite pleasant, 21oC. I could see small fishes largely ignoring us. My dive buddy (Csaba Zoltay) was an experienced cave and technical diver. He had two tanks on his BCD mainly empty (50bars) serving only his BCD and one tank hanging on ropes in front of him to feed him with air.
After we reached surface from 8m I was handed to Zoltán Gyurián, who is a DM and I continued my first dive. This time we headed for the other, deeper side of the wreck and we also went half way along it. At that place there is a part of the wreck where you can swim below the wreck. It is like a bridge connecting the two parts of the wreck. My estimation of the height of the bridge is 2 to 4m, the width is a bit more and the length is approximately 3m. The DM pointed the way to swim below the wreck expressing unambiguously that he wanted me to swim first. No problem. This point was the deepest in this dive 21.6meter according to my computer.
We climbed to the shore after 38minutes. I drank my lemonade that my daughter prepared for me at home (1.5liter), we chatted and relaxed. The weather was not shiny at all, rain was promised by fortune tellers, who claim themselves to be meteorologists. Well after the mandatory 90min SIT time we planned the second dive.
The DM was "Thomas búvár" and we planned to dive threesome with Peter Csipke. We discussed that we aim the bottom of the wreck at 30m. This was the absolute maximum depth that my certification allowed and it was three times more than the maximum depth of my previous dives but the most recent one. The water was also cold there and thus we were equipped with ice proof stages.
Thomas discussed the details on the shore and assured that there is no shame to decide not to dive or to abandon the dive and raise at any time during the dive. He emphasized the importance of the safety stop and warned us to keep that in any case, even if we loose each other. However it was not likely due to the great visibility conditions. I decided not to have my underwater camera this time. The camera was attached to my right wrist during the first dive and felt it insecure to have it on in case I have to seek the regulator. I did not know if nitrogen and cold were going to have an effect on me and if yes what that effect was going to be.
After getting into the water still standing on the rocks I was hacking with my fins quite a few minutes and I had problems fixing the right hand glove. My dive buddies waited patiently. Thomas checked carefully both of our setup.
We started the dive again to the wreck following wire to the depth of 10m. At that point Thomas started to point something on his own clothes to the other Peter. I did not understand what it was and apparently the other Peter did not understand for a while. Finally they could settle the issue whatever it was.
Later, after the dive, Thomas told me that he forgot to attach the inflator to his dry suit and at 10meter it was pressing his precious parts. But they could attach it to the suit.
From 10m we started to dive following the gentle slope of the wreck along it. At the depth of 20m we have reached the bridge and we went on deeper. The water started to become cold. Thomas was frequently checking our conditions changing OK signs. He also asked me at 25m if I was chilling, which I was but still I was OK and signaled it to him. Only my fingers on my hands and feet were aching.
Getting deeper the surrounding became a bit darker, but the visibility got better. Later we have learnt that the weather got cloudy at the surface increasing the darkness. At the depth of 30m I felt the cold, but I was still not shivering when we reached the end of the wreck and slowly swam around heading backward. I felt like the cold water had been paralyzing my lips and I concentrated to bite on the second stage to ensure it remains place. My computer showed 8oC coldest. I felt no effect of nitrogen. Thomas told me that he saw me checking my tanks pressure gauge and computer regularly, which I really did I remember.
The way back from 30m to 8m I swam half meter above the wreck handrails. I could see the mussels in copulating mood each having its small tube protruding out and pulsating sucking and blowing out the water. As I swam above them they could feel the movement of the water caused my body and they pulled back their “penises". Well, I thought, this is not only the mussels that were in that mood. I saw that a male diver was drawing into the mud at 32m at the lake floor the international sign of the female reproduction organ. (I mean the rhomb with a vertical line in the middle and some "hair" above.) Just imagine how horny he was at the depth 4bars pressing each of his parts in 8oC water expressing himself this way.
We reached the 5m safety deco level and swam along the shore slope to the weed. At that place Thomas has found some fish hiding in the weed which I believed was an ell. (There are some in the lake.) At the shore he told me that it was actually a huge great cat-fish. Only the tail I saw was 30cm. Thomas estimated it to be 30kg. The deco dive lasted quite long time. We were playing with fishes a bit and then we climbed out after 42minutes.
I undressed, drank a lot of water, rested, I filled the dive log and chatted with the others. I realized that Thomas still did not finish his DM activity on the surface: he was carefully watching when I was scratching my elbow. No, it was not a sign of decompression illness.
Traveling back to Budapest took two hours in the car.
I have a plan to dive at Grüner See, Austria next year June. That is a shallow water, but it is melt snow of 6oC. This dive was a probe to change my mind. I did not.
The pictures that I made in the water are listed here. You can have a view of the pictures in two different sizes. Clicking on “small" you get a 640x480 pixel image. The “BIG" links lead to 1024x767 pixel picture each.
You can also look at real video video or in ms streaming format.
NOTES based on comments from others
