Burghead divers beat explorers' record
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
BURGHEAD Sub-Aqua Club members are on a high after smashing a record set by explorers in the UK Three Lakes Challenge.
Three intrepid member divers experienced peaks and troughs as they pushed themselves to the limit to raise cash towards a new club dive rib and boost RNLI funds.
Kenny Munro (50), Matt Buckley (48), and Rob Pozzi (45) scaled mountains to dive the three highest-altitude lakes in Scotland, England and Wales in under 24 hours, setting out last Friday, on July 26.
The challenge was pioneered by TV adventurers Monty Halls and Andy Torbet who completed the challenge in 23 hours and 10 minutes. The Burghead trio set themselves the target of knocking at least two hours off the Halls and Torbet time – and smashed even their own expectations by completing it in a new record time of 20 hours and 36 minutes.
Kenny, a retired construction company owner and diving instructor, BSAC advanced diver and the club's diving officer, has been diving for 25 years. Matt is an offshore chief mechanical engineer and a dive leader with 10 years of experience. And Rob has his own upholstery business and a sport diver of 10 years' diving experience. A fourth team member, Alan Gibson (49), a plumbing engineer and sports diver for over 20 years, volunteered to drive between locations.
The team said: "While we never underestimated the challenge, it did prove more gruelling than imagined."
The icy-clear mountain lakes are located at heights of between 2133ft and 3268ft, with a maximum depth of 7.3 metres. The challengers lugged around their dive kit, which weighed 18kg, for around 25 miles on foot over rough terrain, and Alan drove them around 435 miles between lakes.
The starting gun was fired at 3.30pm on July 26, at Loch Coire an Lochain, in the Cairngorms. The loch sits on the north-west slope of Braeriach, the UK’s third highest mountain, at an altitude of 996m. It lies approximately 13km from the nearest road and there is no access path to the loch. This was their longest trek at 24km, 5km of which was "off piste". The Scottish leg took six hours 48 minutes to complete.
The three then made a dash to the Lake District to tackle Red Tarn, at an altitude of 718m, on the western side of Helvellyn. After a 238-mile drive this was a 7.6km walk and climb to the peak, and took three hours 10 minutes to complete.
The team said: "We were glad it was dark while we were climbing this one as it was horrendously steep – and if we could have seen the peak in front this may have proved too daunting."
Their last stop was Ffynnon Lloer, in North Wales, at an altitude of 650m, in the Carneddau mountain range in Snowdonia where the team successfully finished on Saturday, July 27, at 12.06pm. After another 172-mile drive this was, on paper, the easiest peak consisting of a 4.2km long walk and climb.
But the team said: "The challenge was physically and mentally starting to really take its toll by this stage but we dug in."
They completed the last peak and dive in one hour 57 minutes.
The team added: "After climbing with a pack of dive gear strapped to our backs, it was actually very refreshing to set aside the backpack and dive into the cold, gin-clear freshwater lakes. It would be much harder to take on the peaks without the reward of the diving."
The team wore wetsuits and hoods but no gloves, and weighted themselves with stones they collected on the mountain tops.
They added: "There is the most stunning visibility in the lakes. Obviously there is no run-off to spoil the clarity on top of a mountain and we were amazed to spot a brown trout on the last dive and are genuinely confused as to how it got there."
Burghead Sub-Aqua Club, a BSAC affiliated dive club, is 25 years old this month. The club supports the Burghead Jump on Boxing Day every year, providing safety cover in the water.
Donations can be made at www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/kenny-munro-1. Proceeds will be split equally between the RNLI and towards replacing the club's dive boat.
