I have been to Sweden! My neighbouring and rival country. A beautiful country no doubt, but as the true patriot I am – Norway has still not met its match. Here is a picture to illustrate Göteborg a glittery winter day, as you can see it tries to live up to Norwegian standards!
But, Sweden can offer many great things
My first experience was a visit to Oxygène Göteborg, a dive centre in the southern parts of Sweden. The owner, Anders Enlund, invited me to come and take a peek behind the curtains of a dive operation. It is amazing how oblivious we are as divers, to how much work actually is put in a dive centre to keep everything running smoothly. I say we, because I hope I don´t mean me. At Oxygène Göteborg I also met one of the very few female dive instructors I know – Anna Viker. She is basically canned sunshine, and living proof that being a dive professional is possible for females too in the Nordic countries! After a tour around the operation we had to sit down and relax a little bit…in their relax department!! Yes, they have a relax department. Ideally for divers waiting for tanks to be filled, for debriefs after dives, or just to hang out and grab a cup of coffee.
But the best part of the visit was when Anders showed me how a regulator looks like on the inside. And it might sound really weird and simple, but it was not until then I realized how regulators actually function. We have all seen the sketch of the 1st and 2nd stages of a regulator in some diving manual – but honestly, I have never fully understood the mechanism until I stood there with Anders. And I have learned to cherish epiphanies like this, as they happpen more and more seldom as I grow older. So, thank you, Oxygène Göteborg, for giving me peace of mind when it comes to regulators.
After a day in the dive centre, I was going to see a different side of the diving industry – the manufacturers. At Poseidon Diving Systems I was welcomed by Sales Manager, Sverker Palmblad, who was my host for the day. My only experience with Poseidon earlier was their characteristic regulators (they look like shower heads, but are extremely nice to breathe from!). My agenda that day was their Poseidon Discovery – the recreational closed circuit rebreather.
Since it is designed for recreational divers, it is fully automated. After changing the scrubber, all you have to do is let the machine work its way through the pre-dive checks, and you are ready to dive! Compared to many other rebreathers its size is considerably smaller, and thereby easier to handle – which makes it very comfortable for a tiny person like myself. Sverker gave me a thorough introduction to the little machine, and then we jumped in their pool. Me on the rebreather and Sverker as a combined buddy/photographer.
Having a little experience with rebreathers from before, I now found it much easier to bounce around down there without being able to adjust my buoyancy by breathing. It is amazing how your brain can reactivate memorized motor skills!
Credit goes to Poseidon for having the guts to develop such a machine, and it is fascinating how this creates a bridge between the recreational and technical diving community, which in general are considered very separate parts of the diving industry. Since I was already in Göteborg, I had to visit the real Poseidon. For those of you who don´t know, he is the Greek god of the sea (and earthquakes and horses), and they keep a huge statue downtown Göteborg. So, as a tribute to Poseidon Diving Systems – I overcame a barrier and did probably the cheesiest and most touristy thing I have ever done. Posing beneath a statue and taking a picture of it.
