Diving at the Arctic, Svalbard

Diving at the artctic is an impressive experience. Because the dangers of moving ice, diving at the arctic is only possible for a few months per year. Every day two different dives sites are picked by the expedition leader and the dive guides. These sites are not known in advance, as the exact route of the vessel is not known in advance. Sometimes you dive at sites where no one ever dived before. For a couple of dives the sites are just picked on good luck and depths of the sea floor. There is always an element of the unexpected.

Two Zodiacs will bring the divers to the dive sites. You don’t have to carry your gear around, just put it in the zodiacs which are located on the big deck. The zodiacs are then hoisted into the water.
Only experienced dry suit divers, with at least 20 logged dry suit dives, can join the tour. Your gear will be checked by the dive guides. You will at least need two regulators, consisting of a first and second stage. A maximum number of five hoses is allowed. The first dive is the traditional check-up dive. This will be at an easy place where all equipment is tested for the rest of the week. The water temperature is arround 0 degrees Celsius. Therefore good preparation of your gear and warm undergarment is needed here.

The underwater world of the Arctic is very varied. Most of the the dive sites feature enormous kelp plants. Between the kelp a lot of critters can be found, which can be: small fish, amphimipods, small swimming nudibranches, sea-slugs, nudibranches, sea urchins, hermit-crabs, starfish, spidercrabs and a lot more. Other dive sites show a different sight. A rocky sea bed, which at first seems desolated, forms the basis of this part the northern ice sea. On these rocky surfaces a lot of collourfull anemones and sea dahlia’s can be found.

Be prepared, on many of the dive sites you will experience enormous swells. These swells are noticeable on to about 10 meters below the surface. The swells combined with diving through the kelp-forrests makes the dives very special. At the end of the dive you will wonder: “was it the kelp or the sea floor that was moving?”

You will sail through the ice all week. Big icebergs will float by. An ice dive along one of these enormous blocks of ice must be part of the tour. The crew will search for an iceberg that has landed on the sea floor. This way you are sure the ice will not tilt while the divers are underwater. The iceberg also has to be reasonable free of other blocks of ice. Moving ice can close the open water making your ascent impossible.
A bit of sun light will make the underwater scenery even more beautifull. Some icebergs are almost jade coloured, making you forget the coldness of the water.

Close encounters with seals are possible for snorklers. During our tour a group of seals was located northern of Prince Karls Forlandet. They were living at a place where the water was only 1,5 metre deep. Some of them were lying on the rock’s, others were playing around in the water. The animals are not shy at all and you can approach them very closely. Now you can take pictures of them using a wide angle lens. Shots that are impossible for the photographers on land who were following us with their big tele lenses.

The best dive site is called “Saga-Reef”. This is one of the sites that are more or less guaranteed to be visited during the tour. This dive will be the last dive of the drip and will be made during the way back to Longyearbuyen.
Saga-reef is a very complete reference of all there is to see while diving at the arctic. The first 8 meters are covered with enourmous kelp forrests. From 8 meters down you can find a wall that leads you into deeper waters. Across this wall you can find a lot of marinelife: anemones, sea dalia’s in different collours make you think you’re in the tropics. Each kelp plant houses a spidercrab, which are very abundand at this site. Saga reef proves that diving at the arctic can be as impressive as diving in the tropics.