A mountain dairy farm once stood where the lake now is. There were nine huts, where the milkmaids could stay overnight. These huts, an old forest and a road, including a stone bridge, remain - under water.
We are visiting Lyngstøylvatnet for the third time, travelling in a campervan with a portable compressor for our fills. Enormous mountains converging on Geirangerfjord from all directions and the many waterfalls explain why tourists from all over the world are attracted to this region.
We arrive late, but prepare our dive gear and cameras so that we can dive early the next day. It is absolutely silent.
It is just 5°C the next morning - and this is July!
We dive from a small car- park near the lake. As we don our drysuits, a car stops and an elderly German couple stop to read the information panel about the lake. They ask if there is anything to see under water. We nod politely, smile and pick up our fins. Few people passing the lake can imagine what we will be seeing.
We follow an old wall from just beneath the surface down to about 9m.
I photograph the wall and some old trees near it. I could never have explained this view to the couple.
The bottom is as green as if this was still grass, and many old trees have been preserved, despite dying when the rocks came tumbling down. You almost expect sheep to pop into view.
We find the old road that the milkmaids used to walk across the old valley, and follow it eastwards. We soon find a beautiful old stone bridge, and
I signal to my buddy Elin to position herself far away on the other side of it, and swim towards me with her torch lit.
All I could wish for would be a little more sunshine. We are at about 10m, and I have to use the widest aperture on my fisheye lens. I ask Elin to swim across the bridge a few more times as I adjust my position, then we move on, taking turns to swim through the clear water in the arch of the narrow bridge.
Some trees are still standing, some lying. We find one that has almost fallen, and spend 20 minutes trying to find our best positions in the water for good pictures with it. We continue shooting pictures among the trees until our tanks are almost empty.
We dive again in the afternoon and spend the evening filling our tanks.
We check the day's images and plan for the next day, to avoid having to use complicated underwater hand signals any more than is necessary.
IN THE MORNING, a lorry-driver stops to talk to us. He says he is removing rocks from another slide in Norangsdalen and we happen to be parked where he wants to dump the rocks. We move the van.
The old huts are in the western part of the lake, close to where the dam was created. It is very shallow here, and you can see them from the road. On one, you can even see what's left of the birch-bark roof.
We follow the road under water to the huts. I am so keen to start photographing the first that I miss the fact that there are three better-looking huts close together.
Elin waves me over, and we get to work on them. We can see the rain at the surface as we work.
The lake has a population of small salmon, and some of these shy fish get really close here, though with my wide-angle lens on I can't photograph them. We promise ourselves to visit Lyngstøylvatnet again with that in mind.
On our last day, we linger to shoot some topside pictures, and for the first time are blessed with some sunshine and a blue sky. I could have done with that while under water, but we have been here three days and move on, happy with what we have experienced.
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