September 2020
In September 2020, I booked a dive trip to southern Switzerland with TSK Zurich. The plan was to go there as a three-day weekend trip and dive in the Verzasca and Maggia rivers and a mountain lake.
As part of the trip, we would take the Altitude diving and the river¤t diving courses as well. Right after the theory class evening, we made plans to carpool and Annette and I decided to carpool.
Our first dive day took us to the Verzasca valley. The site "Misura Lavertezzo" is down a steep cliff, so we set up our camp for the day on the rocks right next to the water.
The Verzasca is a mountain river which has carved its path into the rock for thousands of years. The strange, smooth shapes of the rocks look even more surreal when the sunlight gives the clear water a bright glow.
This animal jaw bone (perhaps from a deer) is a reminder that the Verzasca is a wild river. It may look peaceful and harmless now, but it can swell into a torrent.
But as mighty as nature is in a place like this, there are still signs of human presence. Even in the valley of this wild stream, we can find relics of mankind.
Of course, during our dives we also had plenty of fun. Annette, for instance, successfully dared a headstand in the mild current.
For me one of the best parts of diving is meeting people and making new friends. This was the first time Annette and I dived as a buddy team and we had a blast in the two dives at Misura.
On the second day, we started with an altitude dive at Lago di Sambuco. Its elevation of a little over 1400 meters makes it a mountain like, requiring altitude diving practices.
Usually the visibility of such mountain lakes is very good. It wasn't bad that day either, but you can tell that the heavy downpour only a few days earlier had stirred up the sediment.
The shallower we got, the clearer the water got and we could marvel at the sunlight sparkling through the clear water.
We also spotted a few trouts hiding in the plants, like this one attempted.
Our second dive of the day lead us to a narrow valley, where we went for a river dive with a good amount of climbing up and down the valley.
The water was quite cold, but we forgot about that as we went diving upstream, through the dark valley and through the shimmering light from above.
Even here, in the cold, clear water amongst all the dead rocks we found fish.
Before we headed back home, we went for one last dive in Ticino. The clear water of the Maggia river with its trouts beckoned.
As we arrived near a small waterfall and turned the dive, we waved goodbye to this wonderful place...
Throughout the weekend, we went diving in amazing spots, made new friends and had lots of fun.