paddydiver
Contributor
A quick and by no means comprehensive report on diving in Sozopol. I'm mostly posting as before I went on holiday here I couldn't really find out anything about the diving. So, I did 4 dives with Гмуркане в Созопол, обучение - Водолазно училище Sub Diving based in the newer area of Sozopol, which is a beautiful ancient town on a peninsula just south of Burgas. The owner Naiden is a former Navy diver who also helps out with underwater archeological research in the area in off season. Really nice laid back guy and very easy to deal with.
Diving: We met in the morning at the old town Marina. I turned up with my own dive gear and Naiden brough the tanks and weights. It was only me and him with a boat boy the first day and 3 of us on the second. We set up on the small rib and drove about 10-15 mins out to the 1st site. 1st dive was the wreck of the pioneer. Fairly small wreck absolutely covered in zebra mussels. The viz was better then I expected. Surface water was around 22'c but there is a significant thermocline after about 10 -12 m so a thick suit is definitely advised for any deeper dives. The life, apart from the mussels and the hundreds af Rapa whelks that feed on them, was mostly gobies and anthias species, but what was cool was the inside of the wreck had lots of fairly large brown meagre. The link below is from the actual dive I did. Depth was 18m and about 45 mins dive time. Descent and ascent along a fixed mooring.
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The second dive was in a very shallow bay in seagrass. The purpose of the dive was looking for seahorses of which we found a few, one of them a pregnant male. We also explored the remains of what seems to be a very old wooden wreck which had shards of amphora scattered about. Naiden wasn't sure what it was as it hadn't been properly excavated. Pretty interesting all the same. The next day the wind had picked up so we couldn't travel out to the deeper sites. We did 2 shallow reef/seagrass dives instead and back for another look at the wreck.
Things to know! I brought my own equipment as I usually do when travelling but the gear he had at the shop looked good. It was mostly Mares and looked pretty new. The prices for qualified divers seem to reflect that most people would turn up without gear as there wasn't much discount on offer for bringing your own. Price for boat diving worked out around 55 euro per dive.
Although I only got 4 dives in, I did some freediving around the rocks at the tip of Sozopol and around the pier at St Ivan island nearby. Both were nice with fairly good viz so there is potential for good diving.
I gathered from the divers there that conditions can change fairly quickly, wind picks up easily and as the black sea is wide open it gets choppy as waves build up. On the flip side it dies down fairly quickly too. Viz was reasonably good while I was there (5 - 10m....I dive in Northern Europe
) but I think this too can change quite a bit.
The diving Industry as a whole here doesn't seem too well developed and while it's not going to rival the better known European destinations, I really enjoyed it and you get a feeling of exploration diving in areas not too well known. In summary, if you're in Bulgaria and want to dive give Naiden at Sub diving a shout. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Diving: We met in the morning at the old town Marina. I turned up with my own dive gear and Naiden brough the tanks and weights. It was only me and him with a boat boy the first day and 3 of us on the second. We set up on the small rib and drove about 10-15 mins out to the 1st site. 1st dive was the wreck of the pioneer. Fairly small wreck absolutely covered in zebra mussels. The viz was better then I expected. Surface water was around 22'c but there is a significant thermocline after about 10 -12 m so a thick suit is definitely advised for any deeper dives. The life, apart from the mussels and the hundreds af Rapa whelks that feed on them, was mostly gobies and anthias species, but what was cool was the inside of the wreck had lots of fairly large brown meagre. The link below is from the actual dive I did. Depth was 18m and about 45 mins dive time. Descent and ascent along a fixed mooring.
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No comment only happiness!!!!
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The second dive was in a very shallow bay in seagrass. The purpose of the dive was looking for seahorses of which we found a few, one of them a pregnant male. We also explored the remains of what seems to be a very old wooden wreck which had shards of amphora scattered about. Naiden wasn't sure what it was as it hadn't been properly excavated. Pretty interesting all the same. The next day the wind had picked up so we couldn't travel out to the deeper sites. We did 2 shallow reef/seagrass dives instead and back for another look at the wreck.
Things to know! I brought my own equipment as I usually do when travelling but the gear he had at the shop looked good. It was mostly Mares and looked pretty new. The prices for qualified divers seem to reflect that most people would turn up without gear as there wasn't much discount on offer for bringing your own. Price for boat diving worked out around 55 euro per dive.
Although I only got 4 dives in, I did some freediving around the rocks at the tip of Sozopol and around the pier at St Ivan island nearby. Both were nice with fairly good viz so there is potential for good diving.
I gathered from the divers there that conditions can change fairly quickly, wind picks up easily and as the black sea is wide open it gets choppy as waves build up. On the flip side it dies down fairly quickly too. Viz was reasonably good while I was there (5 - 10m....I dive in Northern Europe
) but I think this too can change quite a bit.The diving Industry as a whole here doesn't seem too well developed and while it's not going to rival the better known European destinations, I really enjoyed it and you get a feeling of exploration diving in areas not too well known. In summary, if you're in Bulgaria and want to dive give Naiden at Sub diving a shout. You might be pleasantly surprised.
