2012-08-06 50 10

Location

In Talsperre Heyda (accumulation lake Heyda) near Ilmenau

Participants

Plans

I was intrigued as soon as I saw the location on Friday. Mampfred was... less intrigued by the prospect of water, but hoped for a boat to materialize. I tried phoning the hotel hundred meters from the hash, but they were apparently closed or had their day off. Yet I found another contact telling me that, while not strictly allowed, bathing was absolutely common in the lake and safe even in the area of the drainage, since it is 14m underwater and has little throughput. I now had an official goal. Mampfred was even less intrigued of swimming, but came along, and so did Yakamoz.

Expedition

We drove to the lake with the car navigation unit and parked next to it, after some very bumpy roads that were about the worst new roads I ever saw. We then walked onto the dam itself until we had only 30m left and the gps' compass pointed straight onto the water... Off we went. Yakamoz was in peace with her position of photographer, while Mampfred wasn't quite so content with his swimmer status. His concerns (and complaints) stopped abruptly after he reached the water's edge and, carefully testing it, found it warm instead of icy cold. I had sealed the GPS in a condom filled with styrofoam packaging pellets and equipped like this we stepped in. (Styrofoam to keep it afloat should I lose grip, visibility underwater was zero so a drop would have been a loss quickly.) It was indeed warm and so we rather happily swam some meters into the lake and let ourself be guided by the compass. The usual hash dance was completely unneccessary, after a very short round I had a 0m-shot. Made some more photos and then headed out and to the towels.

After quite a long time, a really cool hash again, I think. I certainly enjoyed the stupidity of this. :D