Y-40 freediving tour with only the 2 of us :D

Hi freedivers,

during my family holidays in Italy, last month, I had the opportunity to drive by Montegrotto Terme...which is, by chance :p, the city where Y-40, the deepest pool in the world is located :-).

Thanks to the help of Sandra Gottcheiner, I could manage to have a buddy for that day, namely Iosto Chinelli, a freediving instructor which is used to go there.

I went the day before the appointment with Iosto to check the place and there was quite a lot of freedivers present. They were even praticing sled diving.

The day after (our session was in the afternoon), we get there and there was nobody...I mean no other single freediver. So, we learned that it will only be the 2 of us for the session and that we could even start 30min before the scheduled session..This was all good :D.

1h30 session is normally 35euros but, as you may know, the place was designed in collaboration with freedivers, including Umberto Pelizzari...So, everything looks perfect for us, eg. lots of ropes, uplift system in the deepest part of the pool (-42m by the way ;-), free dedicated gears. Indeed, there you can borrow for free, bi-fins (a few monofins also if I remember correctly), masks and lanyards (which are mandatory if you go below 15m).

I also had the chance to test a prototype of bi-fins produced by Mas(simo) from MatMas. Impressive power that I will definetely want to test again when the final version comes out :D.

So for 2 hours, we could enjoy the pool filled with spring water at ca. 32°C and train at ease! It was great to have Iosto as buddy. It has been years since I could be in a "student shoes" and that somebody could remind me all my litte mistakes, body position, finning..:D. In summary, this was a great freediving session.

By the way, Montegrotto terme is a "Spa-Thermal Village" where the spring water is so hot, that they have to let it cool down a bit before entering the pools :-). If you like wellness holidays, I think that is the place!

After the freediving session, I visited also the local "Apneaman-shop" where I could finally buy a new inner tube for my buoy (thanks Apnea Academy for the discount :D).

In summary, this is a good place for freediving if you drive by Montegrotto terme (Padova) or if you plan to visit Venezia which is only 40min away by train.

I hope that you will enjoy the small video hereunder where I tried to give a tour of the Y-40 pool :-).

See you,

Felice

Y-40 freediving tour with only the 2 of us! from Universal Freedivers on Vimeo.