»There have been more men on the moon than diving the Great Wall of China«
EDITION: Dietmar W. Fuchs / PHOTOGRAPHY: Imran Ahmad
The Great Wall is the quintessential architectural stronghold as is the Fifty Fathoms the mechanical dive watch – and both are idolized in China. An Edition Fifty Fathoms expedition team has created a first: Diving at the Great Wall – with a great dive watch.
The Great Wall of China is actually not one single wall but consists of many ramparts, with the first fortification being built around 700 BC and the majority of the existing walls dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644). However, there is one truly unique section: the sunken wall of Panjiakou.
A tiny section of about 1.5 kilometers out of a total of 6259 kilometers of fortification lies beneath the water surface of the lake created in course of the Panjiakou Dam construction in the 1970s. As unique as this location may be, no truly great pictures were to be found on the Internet. Hence, a team surrounding Edition Fifty Fathoms photographer Imran Ahmad took its chance. On September 27th, 2017, the time had come: Ahmad took his cover shot in a depth of 24 meters in dark and murky waters, about 300 kilometers northeast of Bejing, equipped with an ultra-wide fisheye lens and a tiny dome, suitable to capture both the watch, the diver and a large section of the Great Wall in one frame. Imagine crumbled watchtowers in murky waters that even in the best of visibilities in early autumn are pitch-black.
“There probably have been more men in space than diving the Great Wall of China,” says Steven Schwankert, our Bejing-based dive guide and local expert. He is well-acquainted with the dive site and obviously enjoys being the one to introduce us to this unique location. “There obviously are not too many places suitable for diving,” he further explains. Some parts of the Great Wall have been flooded, as happened in the Panjiakou Valley when the Chinese built a dam in 1977. Yet, several aspects have to concur to turn a sunken part of the wall into a great dive spot. One of these aspects is total depth. In shallow waters, the wall crumbles easily and thus not much is left to explore. In deep waters, mud covers the remains. Wall fragments at the surface, again, are washed away by the waves. We had visited Haoming Lake, a water reservoir north of Bejing before, but the wall there had crumbled and vanished in the shallow water. “The depth zone between 10 and 50 meters is best for diving,” explains Steven. Good visibility is a relative term. In our case it is a mere one to three meters beginning in a depth of about 20 meters. The water temperature is yet another aspect to bear in mind. At a depth of about 30 meters temperatures drop to 10 degrees Celsius. Below 40 meters the thermometer shows a chilly, yet constant four degrees Celsius. “All this calls for dry suit diving and requires advanced dive qualifications,” Steven warns. “Only last month two rebreather divers died exploring the sunken village close by.” The village he is talking about lies in a depth of eighty meters. The foundations of the houses, however, had been removed before the reservoir was filled with water. Hence, there is not much to explore that justifies taking the risks involved with a deep dive.
Going to the Panjiakou reservoir for a visit is quite easy. A three-hour car drive and half an hour by boat journey is all it takes to bring you directly from Bejing to the place where the wall leads into the water. The local landowners have moored a small floating dive base and built some basic accommodations for overnight tourists. Our Blancpain exploration did four dives at the Great Wall, allowing us to visit all the sections that were most interesting. “Of course the most sought-after section is the Wall itself where is has not been broken by surface water. However, there also are a big archway and the remains of a watchtower – on older pictures you can still see them above the water surface.” The water levels change a lot – we were quite lucky to have a high water level: The watchtower was at a depth of about 30 meters and most of the brick sections were submerged.
Diving along this masterpiece of human architecture is awe-inspiring. The atmosphere is eerie and the experience resembles diving a wreck. You carefully run your hands along the stonework and wonder at a structure that was designed to be above the water surface. Somehow you feel trapped in time – as if the soldiers defending the Great Wall against its attackers would reappear anytime soon. We manage to utter sounds of joy even with the regulators in our mouths and shake hands with numb fingers, shivering from the cold. What a privilege! Imagine the master builders of the Ming Dynasty foreseeing strange men from faraway countries, clad in even stranger attire probing their masterpiece with curious fingers.
Blancpain would love to make this experience available to its clients. Do you want to join the elite group of less than 50 divers a year exploring this architectural masterpiece under water? Blancpain is ready to organize a unique trip for up to six divers. Be the one to spend three to four days at this remarkable location and dive in buddy teams to a depth of about forty meters. Prepare for some tough diving and make sure to bring your dry suit – the glorious experience of being one of the few divers worldwide having explored China’s most beloved treasure will compensate for any challenging conditions.
