Travel
Tuesday, 02 June 2009 12:06
Written by Jade Bremner

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that’s Shanghai explores the secret underwater city below Qiandao Lake

Apparently, we know more about the moon’s surface than what lies beneath the Earth’s waters. Yet one thing we know for sure: hidden peacefully under the 576sqm Qingdao Lake is the dormant city of Shi Cheng.

This 1,800-year-old town was uncovered last August by Big Blue’s scuba diving company. The city was accidentally flooded 50 years ago when a reservoir was being built. The whole city was evacuated but the historical architecture remains almost intact deep below the lake’s surface.

Big Blue divers are the only people who know the secret location of this underwater city, which contains eerie derelict buildings, some fully erect and many still intact. “Other dive centers don’t just want to take people to dive there; they want to collect artifacts under the water; but not us,” says our instructor, Paul Adams. Eager for a new adventure, we learned how to scuba dive in order to explore this sunken city. We were told that we’d experience a number of “sights” during our dive, and that there was a good possibility we would discover something no one else has ever seen before. The lake had good visibility and was very clean. “It’s where the bottled water Nongfu Spring comes from,” says Paul. “In the shallow parts you can see schools of fish and shrimps.” All this sounded lush, but then we were informed that some parts of the lake drop to 120 meters. At that moment, a spot of panic set in. We were voluntarily jumping into an unknown abyss. Luckily Paul reassured us that we would only be diving to around 28m and that we should keep an eye on our depth so as not to hit the mud. Mud, come again? “There’s about a meter of mud down there – if you drop too fast you’ll look like you’ve lost your legs,” said Paul. “The first thing most people do is kick their fins, which makes the mud go everywhere and spoils the visibility.” Duly noted, we thought.

The surface water temperature of the lake was very good, around 25 degrees, but when we began our descent the first shock was a sudden change in temperature. As soon as we hit the thermocline (which separates warm water from cold water) it plummeted to 16 degrees and the water turned green. The visibility was still good and light enough to see a couple of meters in all directions.

Yet the further down we went the darker it became. And then just before we fell into complete darkness we flicked on our high-powered flashlights. Checking the depth gauge, we stopped at 28m and made ourselves neutrally buoyant in order to swim towards the city.

After a few minutes of swimming we reached the walls of Shi Cheng – some seven meters high. The city plan was oval and had foot tunnels into the center via specific areas of the wall. With foreboding darkness now all around us, Paul led the way to the gateway of the city. At this point he got out a buddy line, which we attached ourselves to. We carefully swam through the opening of the tunnel (approximately 4m wide, 5m tall and 6m long) then suddenly felt a sharp jerk on the rope. A diver was beckoning us towards murky shadow. Here we saw a grandly detailed Pai Fang archway with Chinese characters etched in the stone. Later we asked locals about the meaning of these characters. Apparently it is believed the character Sheng Zhi with a dragon was once the mark of an emperor. The other character was Xiao Jie. The locals told us this was built as a tribute to a woman who treated her parents and husband with honor and respect.

On our next dive we went further into the city and encountered the ruins of old buildings, some with corridors, windows and rooftops fully intact. Afterwards we asked Paul how dangerous this dive could be. “If you go to this site you must go with a guide,” said Paul flatly. “Guides always carry knives because fishermen have been fishing over the city and there are dangerous lines that have snagged the trees and branches. You have to have your wits about you, and not lose direction.”

We then asked how safe the sunken structures are. “We never enter the wooden buildings or anything with thin walls because they are not stable enough,” said Paul. “Your bubbles are enough to collapse an entire building, but we are prudent so we won’t take any risks.” Thank heavens we learnt this afterwards.

Trip info
Trips leave at 6pm on a Friday every few weeks; the lake is approximately 4.5 hours away. Divers stay at New Phoenix Holiday Resort, a local Chinese 4-star hotel on its own island in Qiandao Lake. To dive, participants must have an Advanced Open Water dive qualification (which Big Blue can train you for in preparation for the trip). Divers can dive three times a day and Big Blue provides all your equipment.
See www.big-blue.cn to book, for more details and for other trips.

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