Treasure divers conquer murky waters

Guns, tennis balls, drain covers, mysterious jars and even a toupée. These are just some of the objects that divers fished out of Emmarentia

Dam at the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens on 21 June.

Once a year divers from the Normalair Underwater Club brave the cold waters of the dam on winter solstice to clean up and to search for ‘strange objects’ lurking beneath the murky waters.

“This club has been doing this for 52 years,” Daleen Potgieter, Normalair Underwater Club’s unofficial spokesperson said at the club’s annual polar dive.

“It’s both a tradition and a community service.”

They have thankfully not found a body yet.

“We’ve found the weirdest things through the years,” Potgieter laughed.

“After the gun amnesty was declared, we hauled out a lot of firearms and ammunition. We’ve found shopping trolleys and false teeth, and even a grenade launcher. One of our divers found a shop mannequin in the lake once – he thought it was a body. And we’ve got the front of a ’60s Hudson in the shed.”

Emmarentia is no diver’s paradise. “It’s a difficult dive,” Potgieter admitted. “We only dive here once a year, on this occasion: our polar dive. The lake has zero visibility – you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face. And it’s cold – divers are not allowed to stay in for longer than 30 minutes or they’ll get hypothermia.”

A minute of silence was held for diving great Peter Timm who passed away on 18 June, and then the assembled brave souls plunged into the water to hunt for treasure.

The day wasn’t limited to diving. A potjiekos competition, cruises on a rusty old boat propelled by steam, helpings of Glühwein and moon-juice and comfortable camaraderie ensured a festive occasion.

Impromptu environmentalists even decided to relocate small fish in a shallow body of water and moving them to the lake. “It’s the Johannesburg version of the sardine run,” Hearn Johnson joked.

Local celebrity and food connoisseur Lochner de Kock was on hand to judge the lip-smackingly delicious potjie offerings and to declare the polar dive winners.

Winners were judged on the most unusual objects retrieved from the lake, and the gun that husband and wife team Aletta and Leon van der Merwe fetched up was judged a worthy winner. Luck favoured Aletta when she took first prize in the raffle draw as well.

“This has been so much fun!” she said.

Steve Gore and Antoine Muskat (former underwater hockey Springboks) took the potjie competition prize home with their delectably soft oxtail.

Normalair Underwater Club’s Emmarentia clubhouse is the heart of the club. “This is our social headquarters,” Potgieter said.

“We offer diving lessons and dive expeditions with top instructors, but obviously we don’t train our divers here. We get together Wednesday evenings, and hang out. Really, we’re like a family.”