Lamda Space

Free diving with humpback whales.

I used to work for a boat that did guided trips to swim with the hump back whales in the silver banks, just north of the Dominican Republic. Normally you can’t dive down on them. They will split. You can just float in the water above them. These guys were super chill and didn’t mind. Plus it was just me and the photographer in the water while the guests were having lunch, so I could get away with diving. The photographer kept wanting me to get closer, for his shot, but those are damn big animals. The mother whale was full frame in my mask and the baby was coming at me so that’s as close as I got.

This is the Green Lake in Tragoess, Styria, which sits at the foot of snow-capped Hochschwab mountains. Throughout the frozen winter months the area is almost completely dry and is used as a county park. It is a particular favourite site for hikers.  But as soon as the temperatures begin to rise in spring, the ice and snow on the mountaintops begins to melt and runs down into the basin of land below.  The park fills up with ice-cold crystal clear water, which gets its distinctive green colouring from the grass and foliage beneath. The water levels rise from about one or two metres deep in the winter to as much as 10 metres in the late spring and early summer. The waters are at their highest in June when it becomes a mecca for divers keen to explore the rare phenomenon, before the waters recede at the end of July.

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Where buoyancy becomes gravity and physics turns upside down.