A Bucket List Dive!

This dive has been on my list since I dived the Nemo 33 pool in Belgium. A massive tick to have made it out to Poland to enjoy this specialised facility.

30 miles south of Warsaw is this incredible pool, with perfect conditions for free divers and scuba divers to practice and fine tune their skills. An in-depth checking in process to ensure you are diving to your certification level and with the correct equipment.

Many trained professionals are available to support your dive plans for the day and are at hand for advice on technical dives and best practice.

The enormous tube in the centre of the pool is a daunting sight at first, a dark hole that seems to move away from you and get narrower and narrower. It is quite impressive to hover above it and let it consume you as you dive to your depth limit and look up to what feels like a far away surface. A dark funnel which allows divers to practice deep diving techniques and breath hold.

The caverns and tunnels that lead you around different areas of the pool but that cannot be seen from the spectator view points are comparable to cave dives I have experienced. Dark spaces with winding avenues leading you to light beams as you find an exit. Excellent practice for divers wanting a taste of what overhead environments are like or to manage dark and low visibility conditions.

The wreck at the bottom of the pool politely guides you to deeper depths as you sit at 20meters before entering the tunnel and deeper section of the space. A perfect spot for a photo or to look up and see the dry tunnel from a different perspective. On lookers waving at you as you glide past them.

With courses running almost continuously, free divers are passing you at various rates down ropes and lines marked out for them as guides. Instructors swimming close to them for support. Bubbles from divers below tickle your face as they practice skill sets or emerge from the cavers below you.

I would be telling a lie if I said that moving closer and closer to the deep tunnel wasn’t daunting. It’s a strange feeling to feel sucked in a direction, a callapsing looking cave like space that goes against all of your instincts to penetrate. It’s why we are all here though, to experience the incredible view of such a fantastic pool for training. One that mimics what going out to the ocean might look like and a reminder of how seemingly easy it is in comparison to a perhaps harsher sea.

The buzz underwater, quiet but vibrational is a highlight. Everyone is there for their own reason but with a common passion for the sport, for the thrill of being deep and for pushing yourself.

The list of individuals that have dived this pool is lengthy, professionals, novice divers, trainees, trainers. It’s a very special place and really brings our community together.

It was a long time coming to get out here and I am thrilled that I have dived it. What an achievement. Thank you Deepspot.