Scuba in Poland

I was looking at scuba shops in Poland, and noticed there's quite a few around Gdańsk. This shop seems to be the highest rated:

cn-tryton.pl/

A lot of the shops are advertising some pretty neat looking wreck dives. But also, most of the trips are to places like Egypt and Thailand, instead of in home waters.

Anyone here been diving in Poland? Is the Baltic pretty miserable looking below surface?

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Unfortunately, you can find Nord Stream 2 there, for example.

This surprised me, when reading the reports in American press about how the Ukrainians likely blew up the pipeline. The Baltic is so shallow! Divers working off a helium/oxygen mix can comfortably work on its bottom to destroy a pipeline. The depth where the charges were placed was apparently 240 ft. I never went so low, but I did go to 160ft on Nitrox (22% O2), and I'm just... well... me. I imagine for a military frogman it was a walk in the park.

It's really a puddle, not a sea.

It's not tropical waters, it's colder, the visibility is lower, etc.:

bestdivers.pl/dlaczego-my-o-bestdivers/publikacje-w-mediach/artykul-ku-przestrodze/

wrakibaltyku.pl/pl/c/o-nurkowaniach-w-baltyku.html

"About diving in the Baltic

Diving in the Baltic is special. It's hard to compare it to other waters in the world. The green colour of the water, the often changing visibility and weather conditions require special training, knowledge and diving skills from the diver.

The magnet that draws divers to this region of the world are the numerous shipwrecks, some of them, because of their uniqueness, are counted among the top spots for diving in Europe."


Then why don't you try it and see for yourself... Oh wait, but you can't enter Poland... can you? :) 😁

Links about diving in the Baltic in English:

bundesland24.de/en/diving-at-the-baltic-sea-safely-with-these-tips-in-the-depths/?utm_content=cmp-true

scubadiving.com/scuba-diving-baltic-sea-in-russia-what-it-takes


That's understandable, those are great places for diving with clear waters, coral reefs, rich, colourful flora and fauna. The Baltic is cold and murky and there isn't much to see there besides the Word War II shipwrecks, which are it's biggest diving attraction, I guess. So, I'd say diving there is for more hardcore diving enthusiasts and people interested in the history of WWII.

Sounds a lot like New York. I have only ever dived in New York twice, the overwhelming majority of the rest of my dives in the northern half of the East Coast happened in an abandoned and flooded quarry in Pennsylvania called Dutch Springs. The owner sunk some helicopters, planes, buses and other trash at the bottom of the quarry, and then there are floating platforms at different depths where one can rest or regroup with your class. I did a lot of training there for night diving, blind navigation, and other poor visibility shenanigans. It has a certain attraction.

It's nice to look at a school of mackerel, play with an octopus, or float above a reef. But at its core, scuba is a buddy sport, like alpinism or climbing. The fun is in taking care of each other, being obsessive about safety, and then later being able to share the story. I always got more of this on "technical" dives in more "gloomy" waters.

Plus I love wrecks.

I have an active Schengen visa now, but if this war goes on too much longer it will expire and I'm not sure if I can get a new one given the circumstances.