NEWS & MOVIES ARCHIVE

Y-40 The Deep Joy Adventure

Ten years ago in Brussels opened officially the deepest pool in the world, Nemo 33. Diving for disabled divers, as we know it today, was then still in the early stages and nobody thought about route to the capital of Europe, because we at that time did not have enough knowledge in this field to dive into the deepest pool in the world. Slowly and steadily we approached the magical limit of five bars of the absolute barometric pressure, which is the limit for recreational scuba diving. In more than a decade long research of pushing the limits in the field of recreational diving for people with spinal cord injury we found the answers to all the questions we were interested in. In doing so, we have not had much help from the outside. The competent institutions in Slovenia unfortunately did not offer any support for that matter. No matter what, today in recreational diving people after spinal cord injury are no longer a big secret and knowledge is passed on from experienced to less experienced divers quickly and easily.
 
With an abundance of knowledge and experience, we went to a new deepest pool in the world: the Y-40. The Italian team led by the young Antonio pleasantly surprised us with their approach. For the first time in a long time none of the fifteen members of the team could find a single matter that would put us in a bad mood. Even a little worse visibility due to problems with water filtration has not disrupted us. The idea of diving into the deepest pool in the world was born without a good reason. After short preparations we formed a team of fifteen divers which had all the logistical support and equipment available, including three vehicles, that were kindly lent to us by our sponsors.
 
We chose a Saturday, 22.11.2014, when the weather forecast promised good weather and we all hoped for a pleasant day. All this has enabled us that we have devoted ourselves to the adventure, which began in the middle of the night, when the first divers went on the way to Ljubljana, where we all boarded in two vans and drove to Italy, all the way to Padua and the nearby Montegrotto Spa, where the hotel Millepini and the pool Y-40 is located. Immediately upon arrival, we found that a large part of the pool is under the ground, and that the whole complex is well integrated with the surrounding area. We arrived a whole hour before the agreed official briefing, so we could take a good look at the entire complex before the dive. Most of us were fascinated by the pool with a roof terrace, from which rises the magnificent view of the surroundings.
 
The first difference between Nemo 33 and Y-40 is in the accessibility. In Belgium, a team with disabled diver, without elevator, barely broke through to the surface of the pool on the second floor.  In the complex of Y-40 a diver with disabilities can get to the edge of the pool by using a large luxurious elevator. Entering the water the swimming pool users can also use a mobile crane, but was politely refused by our team, because the help of the lift was not necessary. The pool, which is the work of Italian architect Emanuel Boarett is a unique facility that beneath the surface of 378 square meters at various depths from 1.3 and up to 42 meters is flooded with impressive 4.3 million litters of thermal water, hiding everything you need for enjoying apnea, and technical SCUBA diving. Access to wardrobes is literally over the water through the tunnel, which runs across the entire width of the pool and it provides a good overview in almost every corner, even for those outside the wet element. The arrangement is similar to diving in Nemo 33. Every dive begins at the full hour and lasts for 40 minutes along with a mandatory five-minute safety stop. Despite the considerable extent of Italian democracy and their flexibility, instructors stick to the schedule. As far as the time is regarded they are unforgiving to the visitors, and do not tolerate exceeding the time limit. Our team has been dealt a little differently because we did not have such strict limitations and we had more time to prepare for the dive. We could use our own equipment, which is another big exception, because the other divers in Y-40 can use only their own mask, and the computer. At the disposal were also tanks with a capacity of 15L, which is not very often, and enables leisure diving even for those with little bigger lungs. Such luxury in competitive pool Nemo 33 is not possible because there they are offering only the use of 12 litter cylinders. All the other equipment: regulators, compensators and fins is new, and of all sizes. Supplier of the equipment is from the group Aqualung. The equipment, which is available there is nothing special, but it is nevertheless a pleasant diving.
 
After the briefing we selected and prepared, the equipment, which was immediately after the end of the diving, by a careful staff, taken away by the special trolleys and immediately set ready for the next group. At this stage, everything runs more as following the “German”. In this way, the pool can swallow up to 500 divers in one day, but this is far from the rule, because the normal number of daily visitors revolves around 150. After the dive, we lazily crawled ourselves at a large reception desk and tables were quickly filled with local delicacies from our backpacks. We were joined by Italians also.  A brief chat with fellow Italians has quickly passed over a snack and a glass of red wine, unfortunately the time has come to depart home.
From Montegrotto we drove to Sezana, where we enjoyed a late dinner in the old-established Inn Grgic. Introduction to a delicious dinner was excellent Istrian stew or Jota. Dinner ended with a quartet of cheeses, and a few jars of excellent wine Teran. We arrived in Ljubljana fully fed, happy but also a little exhausted from the effects of healing thermal water.
 
The team consisted of divers and instructors from all over Slovenia:  Alenka FIDLER, Ales POVSE, Alojz PACNIK, Blaz RIBIC, Bojan JENKO, Branko RAVNAK, Damjan PEKLAR, Gaber GUNA, Janez ZUPAN, Klaudija POROPAT, Matjaz PAJ, Peter MAJCEN, Rajko PRELOG, Tanja CERKVENIK, Tomaz BOBIK.

Our hearty thanks goes to all who helped an expedition, and that we did not have excessive costs:

• PKSK and IAHD Adriatic (moderate price and for organizing the adventure)
• YHD (Association for Theory and Culture of Handicap, which contributed a van and fuel)
• ZPS (Paraplegic Association of Slovenia has also contributed a van)
• Suunto (diving computers)
• AP Diving (compensators)
• Jenko Bojan (responsible for the safety and equipment, and contributed one regulator for testing)
• SCUBATom (lent a regulator Scubapro for testing)
• Peter Majcen (for all the logistics of the vehicles and regulators)

22. 11. 2014