Don't Go Sea Treking, Go SeaTrekking!

Introducing the exciting sport of queuing underwater

We had never heard of Sea Trekking and when we did, what came to mind was a picture of fat tourists, large surface-supplied helmets framing their terrified faces, groping their way along a submerged guideline.

This, they would undoubtedly have been told when they parted with their hard-earned cash, would be an undersea adventure like no other. It’ll be like you’re Captain Nemo undertaking a fantasy walk beneath the waves just like in the Jules Verne classic. Sea Treking requires no swimming ability, no previous experience or specialised skills. Just descend into the water, travel along the pre-set route and enjoy the “once-in-a-lifetime adventure” of being surrounded by marine life of all shapes and sizes. Yawn!

Of course, more often than not, the helmet-encased tourists stir up so much sand and sediment as they haul themselves across the seabed that the fantasy adventure soon turns into a hellish walk where the only thing visible through the murk is the odd wrasse flitting between the clouds of silt and bubbles. And not all the bubbles come from the same ends….

We cannot think of a more horrendous way to spend thirty minutes of our life than to be herded like cattle across the sea floor, our heads enclosed in a cyberman’s helmet, trying to avoid looking at the wobbling backside of the flatulent Homer Simpson look-alike in front. It’s not a Jules Vernesque adventure, it’s hell in high water and the very thought brings shivers to our collective spine.

Coasteering

Fortunately however there is another form of Sea Trekking, one that is much more to our taste. Back in 2005, so the story goes, a group of youngish people who enjoyed hiking decided that walking around the coast was fun but what would be much more fun is if they added the sea to their hiking trails. Ah, you might exclaim, they’ve discovered Coasteering. That sport where you hike around the coastal fringes leaping in and out of the sea etc. Err… Well… Yes and no. SeaTrekking combines hiking, snorkelling and freediving and although it shares some similarities with Coasteering it has several significant differences one of which is that unlike Coasteering, the SeaTrekker doesn’t see the water as an obstacle to be navigated, rather it is a part of a journey that should be enjoyed. SeaTrekking is about traversing coastal areas, travelling above, in and below the water as much as travelling on land. SeaTrekkers spend days, even weeks exploring the coast carrying everything they need with them and at night they camp beneath the stars on secluded beaches and coves. Some of you might consider such an activity as rather romantic, an escape from the rat-race, exploring the shores less travelled and spending long evenings starring up at bejewelled skies. Others however, might be thinking that it sounds like hippy nonsense. The sort of stuff that pot-smoking wasters, who still wear tie-dyed t-shirts and refuse to wash their hair, dribble on about. In truth, both points of view are valid.

SeaTrekkers with kit

SeaTrekking is the brainchild of one Bernard Wache, whom it is fair to say, does have an air of hippydom about him. “We wanted to escape everyday life,” Wache explained to National Geographic Magazine, “We were looking for a way to feel what’s essential again.” However don’t think for one minute that he is just another airhead trying to “find himself”. For one thing, Wache is German, not the most airy-fairy of races we’re sure you’ll agree and for another he is a Designer and diver who has put some considerable effort into finding a way that the SeaTrekker can take their tent, cooking gear and spare underwear with them into the water without ending up with pile of smelly damp stuff at the end of each day. The first example of what would become a lifelong obsession to design watertight gear for the sport was a simple garbage bag that he tied around a sleeping bag and then to his foot. After that, he couldn’t let go of the idea of diving with camping gear. “I always wanted more time in the ocean,” the veteran snorkkeler and freediver explains, “going the most direct, puristic way I could imagine, without technology, boat, or backup.”

For a decade, he tinkered with ideas for how to keep his gear dry, sewing and gluing prototypes by hand in his basement. Finally in 2011, he contracted a company in Munich that make aluminum molds, and started commercial production. “Some people make a house, or a family,” Wache says. “I made a rucksack.” His new company Aetem, (which is similar to Atem the German word for "breath”) has plans to make new versions of the original waterproof rucksack, that will be better and cheaper.

Although still relatively new, SeaTrekking is gaining popularity as a sport and a dedicated community of intrepid adventurers is cropping up in Europe, Japan and beyond. Wache’s company Aetem, also offers tailored tours along coastlines not normally accessible by foot. Thailand, Croatia and Sardinia are just a few of the locations that can be visited.  

Oh the sense of freedom you get from packing stuff

SeaTrekking, with its adventurous spirit of exploration, love of nature and romantic notions of getting-away-from-it-all sounds marvellous but we do have a few issues. For instance the current waterproof bag, on offer on Aetem’s website, retails at over 900 Euros. That’s not cheap and even if the newer versions come in at half that price, that won’t be cheap either. Secondly there is that entire hippy, Gaia loving, anti-materialism stuff that fills the Aetem and SeaTrekking community website. In fairness there is nothing wrong with wanting to get back to nature, but it does sound a bit hypocritical if the way you go about “escaping everyday life” is to manufacture and sell a very expensive product and then move into the world of commercial tour guiding. Selling stuff seems a strange way of escaping materialism. These are minor issues however, born from too many beers and, in all honesty, a little bit of jealousy. You see, what Wache calls SeaTrekking, is very similar to what we’ve been doing for years (except we call it extreme snorkelling), we just didn’t think to try and make money out of it. But then nor did we realise that we needed to take a great big waterproof backpack filled with camping gear with us when we go for a days snorkelling, as we tend to have a 4x4 waiting for us at journey’s end. We like to call this: planning ahead. Then again, running a adventure tour company or designing a waterproof rucksack seems like a lot work to us and we’d rather be snorkelling. 

Nitpicking and jealousy aside, we think SeaTrekking is not a bad way of spending some free-time and if you are of bold spirit and are a good swimmer we’d recommend you give it a go because as once-in-a-lifetime underwater adventures go, SeaTrekking kicks the proverbial brown stuff out of Sea Treking.

By the way we have joined the SeaTrekking community, we don’t know why but it seemed like a good idea at the time. We may however be posting some stuff on their website so why not have a look around now and again.