03/10/2013
"Plötsligt händer det!"
No, I will not even try to translate that, let's just settle on the fact that this mine never ceases to bring amazing experiences. A little bit more than one week ago I finally came to a conclusion: Next time my normal buddies would ask for going on yet another exploration dive on the 50m level I would state "Do as you wish, but I'm done with this level. There's nothing more interesting to see. Page me when you feel ready to attack the next level...". I never actually dropped that sentence because I was lucky enough to be able to blame a birthday party rather than being boring, but in any case Daniel and Oskar went for a dive without me.
On Sunday evening I got a phone call from Daniel. He had one very short message:
"Are you taking the day off on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday?". He wouldn't tell me any details, but promised that I wouldn't be disappointed.
Come Wednesday I took the afternoon off and went on what ended up in one of the nicest dives this year. What the guys actually had found was one of the main shafts that we've been searching for but not been able to locate for the past two years. We've known one way down ever since we started diving in the mine, but swimming very close to several hundred years old ladders in a small compartment stretching from 30 m to 50 m depth is hardly something nice. Going down would certainly result on a cloud of silt and the exhaust bubbles during the ascent would risk causing items falling down on us. Hence we've been looking for another way down here.
The long wait made it even more interesting. The main finding is a huge wooden construction (with pillars at least 60-70 centimeters in diameter) that we believe is some kind of "loading" facility for ore. Several water transportation devices (newer pipes and older aqueducts) have also been found. Loads of smaller artifacts are spread out in the area, many of them not seen by us earlier on other locations in the mine and hence not understood by us so far. One of the nicest obvious findings is a hat that is hanging where it was left by the owner probably a little more than 100 years ago.
I can honestly say that I have to do some more dives on this level. This time was well worth the effort of spending a little more than 4 hours below the surface. Next time, bring cameras and hot beverages. Also, leave the broken electrical undersuit on the surface and instead make sure to wear one that doesn't have a trashed cable :)
