Experiences in Bulgaria

[Rbox]

Hi, we went to Bulgaria this vacation and I did a few dives there in the Nesebar-Sozopol area. Thought I'd share my experiences. Nesebar: nothing to see underwater but grass, kelp & stones when diving from shore. Saw 2 small fish on a one hour dive. Vis was 2 to 5m. Went diving with Angel divers, who operate from a small shack in the harbour. No accomodation whatsoever, prepping your gear & undressing etc. all done on the street with numerous tourists passing by.

Then went 'wreck diving'. Pick up at hotel (good), drive to Sozopol (OK), exit at small fishing harbour (derelict). Then they pointed out the dive boat: a small and very old fishing sloop, even older than the old captain operating it I think. Had to drag equipment & tanks over myself. There was absolutely no room on the sloop, no space to relax when surf. int. , diesel fumes right in your nose. Donning gear was not easy. No emergency gear on board. At the first wreck, there was no buoy due to a storm. We went in nevertheless, swam like fools for 20 min at 25m but didn't find the wreck (vis. 3m, bottom completely devoid of life). Instructor said it wasn't their fault that the buoy was gone (true) and wanted my money nevertheless (wrong). 'Wreck' 2 was a small barge, approx. 10m in lenght and completely empty. A very sorry experience it was.

Now I don't mind having an old boat or doing the work, but they shouldn't charge the same prices as in Egypt when it's like this. But then they do: all divingschools i've seen here charge 30€ for a single shore dive and 90€ for a wreck trip with 2 dives, no drinks, no food. And I had to nag for a long time to even get a small reduction for using my own gear.

 

[ElChe]

I thought about to make a trip to Bulgaria altough I knew the vis is never that good. Sorry to hear the quality of the services they offer low while the prices are high. I'm just returned from Croatia which isn't cheap but least the dive center looked like a real, well equipped one with fast speedboats. (And certainly the visibility wasn't 2-3 meters but 20-25.) As I am a Central European those countries are easy to reach but if somebody travel to the Balkan from distant countries I suggest to check out the diving possibilities before the trip...

 

[Nikmacve]

I live in Bulgaria. I have not done nearly as much diving here as I want to, but in my limited experience of the Black Sea, the northern end of the coast (Varna and above) is better than the south near Burgas.

 

[sebach]

I went to Bulgaria in august 2010 for 3 weeks holidays. On these, I had planned about one week diving from Sozopol and maybe be a few dives in the Varna area.
While I loved the country and mostly find its inhabitants to be nice, I have to say that I was very disappointed by the dives I've done.
The diveshop I tried to use weren't very reliable.
The one I finally went to claimed to be a tek dive center (IANTD). I had said a few weeks in advance that I was interested in wrecks dives and tek dives, and when I would be there.
There was in fact only single tanks with single valve available, and only air.
I went for a 2 tank wreck dives one day. It was a bit cheaper than you (60€ for 2 dives at about 10 mn boat from the port). The boat was OK.
We dived twice on the same wreck, a freighter sunk during the ww2. I was very surprised by the lack of life on that wreck. The colonization consisted mostly on mussels. The group consisted mostly of inexperienced divers (including a junior OW), in the 36-28m range, so with a short bottom time (17-18 min each time on the wreck).
Probably the most boring wreck dives I've ever done (so far about 50 different wrecks in about 150 wrecks dives).
They claimed that the most interesting wrecks in the area were forbidden.
I was proposed to dive on a farther and deeper wreck, if they could find enough experienced divers.
It would have been a 60m deep wreck.
While I don't frown upon diving at theses depths (or deeper) on air, and as most French experienced divers I've done it quite a lot of times on single 15 litres tank (but with two 1st stages), I declined the proposal as I didn't felt it safe enough:
Dive on air on 60m for a square dive, no deco tank or pony available, only one reg with a water temp of 8°C, only in a wet suit so freezing dive and no good floatability redundancy, insta buddy. Add to that a country here I don't know the decompression chambers available.
So obviously I didn't do it, and I was told that the open water shallow dive would be of no interest for me (at least they didn't try to scam me).

I didn't see the dive shop of Varna area that I had planed to look for, but I didn't spend to much time trying to find them.