The Reuss Schwimmen Luzern 

is a Marathon Whitewater Swimming organized annually by the Swiss Scuba Diving Club (click for full size pictures)

The Swiss Scuba Diving Club makes it possible: Starting at a factory area at the Reuss river, participants enter the special train to Luzern. People in the Luzern train station are quite surprised when the 300-500 people in wetsuits and fins leave the train at the main train station of Luzern.  From here we walk (no truck, we are not in Texas anymore) to one of the scenic bridges. When the signal sounds, we jump from the bridge into the cold water. Fun and "teamgeist" is the idea. Teams  bring weird toys, lots of booze, watertight cigarette containers etc. on the 12 mile swim. By the way, the blond lady with the red wetsuit top is now my wife.

Yehh, that's me!

Yes, we did it again in 1999, 2000, and 2001!

It w as a great time again with our friends in Switzerland!  Here two more pictures that I took at the 2000 swim.

There were situations on this swimming event where I did not want to take the risk of getting my NIKON wet. These two shots were made by a friend of mine with a disposable waterproof camera (no enlargements possible):

Serious scuba diving in a lake in Germany.

I have an education as a rescue scuba diver.  Since I had to leave for an academic calling to IU, Bloomington Indiana, I never finished my certificate.

Well, you should never say never again: December 2000 I finally made my open water certification in Venezuela. 

Further addicted I went for my own equipment: http://sociothought.com/informal/dive/dive.htm

Well, and then in January  2010:

And then the family was diving

Odin, my dive partner with his advanced open water certification

Alina with her open water certification