Diving

Mankind has been diving since the primitive man had to dive to the ocean floor for food. Scientists have found underwater items from these times on land and there are also ancient drawings of divers. Man has been freediving for thousands of years and always thought about how to stay down there longer.

Diving with today's SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) gear started already in the second half of the 18th century. In 1942-1943 Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan made some radical changes to the system and with their Aqua-Lung created a whole new era in recreational scuba diving. The world's largest organization uniting scuba divers - PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors), was created in 1966 by John Cronin and Ralph Erickson.

In spite of a long history of diving the aquatic realm is still the least studied and explored environment today...

Taking a scuba course will offer you a new and unique way of spending your recreational time. Scuba diving into the enchanting and beautiful underwater world will make your vacations more thrilling and enjoyable. Diving in Estonia offers a lot of shipwrecks and many dive sites with beautiful nature.

Estonia
Most of Estonia's diving is done in northern part of the country but there are divers and dive sites all over Estonia. We dive in the sea, lakes and quarries ... in summer and in winter.

The main dive sites are situated in the Northern coast line, The Bay of Tallinn, Southern-Estonia's lakes, Saaremaa and Hiiumaa coastline, The Pakri Islands, Paldiski and Mohni island. There are of course other very nice dive sites not mentioned in this list.

The sea temperature varies depending on the season and a lot of other natural variables. During summer season temperature in the upper layers may warm up to 17-18 degrees Celcius but it can drop to 4-5 degrees in the deeper layers (35-40m). Water temperature in lakes depends mostly on the presence and number of springs and can be quite chilly or even warmer than sea water.

The main sea bottom composition is sand, limestone or silt and in lakes and quarries also sand and silt. Depending on the bottom composition and weather conditions the visibility in estonian waters is mostly 3-6 meters but sometimes we are blessed with a much better visibility. Usually cold water and good visibility go hand in hand.

In many of the shallow dive sites like Lohusalu madal and Nabesaare madal the bottom is rocky and covered with nice colorful seaweed. The flora in lakes is more diverse and dense. When diving in the sea one can mainly see flounder, pout, sea bass, perches, flatfish and three-spined sticklebacks but sometimes an occasional lumpsucker or monkfish. One can also see different crustaceans crawling on the sea floor. There have been some sightings of crabs lately. Lakes offer mainly fish such as perches, the roach, pikes and other fresh water fish.

Estonia's waters are well known for all the shipwrecks that have sunken to the bottom of the sea over a long history and is therefore also ideal for technical diving. Many of the wrecks have been sunk because of war activity. Thanks to low salinity many of the deeper wrecks are preserved quite well. In shallower water wrecks are damaged by weather and the coming and going of ice. According to divers' ethics and wreck diving procedures nothing is removed from wrecks and no artifacts are brought to surface when diving to them (exept for scientific and archaeological reasons in accordance with the Maritime Museum and the National Heritage Board). Divers must not touch any of the mines or missiles left on the sea floor from the IIWW or the Soviet times because they may be unstable and potentially dangerous. Such findings must be reported to the Dive Center. PADI Wreck Diver specialty or AOWD level (including wreck diving experience) is required for diving to wrecks (also deep diving experience for diving to wrecks deeper than 18m).

Abroad
Based on different information 70-80% of Earth is covered with water of which 97% is salt water oceans. This gives an ideal opportunity for scuba diving for people who like to travel and vice versa. A classical question - which are the best dive destinations?

There is no straight answer to that ... it depends on what one is seeking. Many want to see colorful corals and fish, many are looking for shipwrecks, many for caves, etc. Our goal is to give you as much information on different dive destinations as possible through annual dive trips and travel notes. Most popular destinatios among Estonian divers are Egypt and Thailand but Oxygene Tallinn also travels to more exotic destinations like Kenya, Vietnam, Venezuela, etc.

Daily diving
Oxygene Tallinn offers daily diving trips from May till October and also wreck safaries. Most of our daily diving is done to various wrecks in Tallinn Bay but also to other dive sites near Tallinn.