So Fresh and So Clear: The Best Freshwater Scuba Diving Sites | Sport Diver

So Fresh and So Clear: The Best Freshwater Scuba Diving Sites

Things get weird — really weird — in fresh water. Because unlike the oceans, where the animals and currents are constantly mixing, these lakes and cave systems have evolved like islands, mostly uninfluenced by their surroundings for centuries. Stuff happens. Freshwater seals evolve. So, too, do pink freshwater dolphins. Thousands of sockeye salmon decide in the same instant that it’s time to spawn. Crystals sprout up in caves where science would have us believe they shouldn’t. And in some places, nature worked its hands through rock for millennia to create unreal amphitheaters, now in the middle of the jungle.

Here are some of our favorites.

LAKES

LAKE HURON
Ontario, Canada

scuba diving canada lake

COLLISION COURSE: Tobermory, which is located at the northern tip of the South Bruce Peninsula, juts out into Lake Huron, forming the western border of the Georgian Bay. There are more than 20 shipwrecks, ranging from novice depths to technical. Fathom Five National Marine Park protects many of the ships that came to grief on the shallow shoal here. The Forest City sank in 1904 after running into an island in dense fog,

Andy Morrison

The Forest City wreck, found in Lake Huron’s Fathom Five National Marine Park outside Tobermory, Ontario, is among the region’s best-preserved three-masted wooden schooners thanks to depth: At 150 feet, it’s far less subject to the zebra mussels, algae and bacteria that bring decay.

The same can’t be said for the bow, resting on shore since fog caused the ship’s handlers to run it aground in 1904. At the time, the price of nails was too attractive to locals, who burned the bow to collect the little treasures.

But from the waterline down, the 214-foot vessel is gorgeous, and it offers a challenge to newer divers given that it rests on a 45-degree slope.

“It can be hard to realize how deep you are because of how the ship is oriented — you can lose that sense of depth very easily,” says Vsolt Vincze, a local dive guide and instructor at Little Cove Adventures.

Stay focused and you’ll have enough time to take in the railings and boilers, and navigate the swim-throughs of this former cargo ship. Says Vincze, “You go down and you always feel like there is more to see.”

Lake Huron offers some sites easily accessed by shore and, of course, a seemingly endless fleet of wrecks. The Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary alone has more than 100 discovered wrecks.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: May through October
Water Temp: 36–43°F
Average Viz: 50 feet


LAKE BAIKAL
Siberia, Russia

scuba diving russia

ROLLING IN THE DEEP: Not only is Lake Baikal the deepest lake in the world, at 5,300 feet, but it’s also the oldest. Scientists believe that the UNESCO World Heritage Site — which accounts for one-fifth of the world’s fresh water — is at least 25 million years old.

Andy Morrison

There are probably 100 facts about Lake Baikal that would surprise divers. For starters, the world’s largest lake by volume offers wall diving: Sheer rock faces shoot downward to depths of 2,300 feet and beyond. They were created by the shifting continental plates below.

This is home to the endemic Baikal seal, one of the smallest, at 4 feet in length, and considered the only true freshwater pinniped. Or consider the crustaceans. The Baikal gammarus, an amphipod, is yellow, and grows to be the size of a pack of gum. Elsewhere, they tend to be no bigger than a Chiclet, making them hard to spot. The lake is incredibly diverse in topography, with canyons, tunnels, grottoes, caves and more — so much so that perhaps it’s not surprising at all that this lake is a destination serviced by liveaboard dive boats.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round, including ice diving
Water Temp: 37–47°F
Average Viz: 40 (fall) to 150 (summer) feet


CAPO D’ACQUA
Abruzzo, Italy

These medieval ruins were sacrificed to flooding in the 1950s when the area needed hydroelectricity as well as a place to store water for irrigation.

Now, two mills and the remains of a village are found at a depth of roughly 30 feet — but because this site sits at an altitude of 980 feet in the Abruzzo Mountains, bottom times will need to be adjusted.

Highlights here, which can only be done as a guided dive arranged with local operator Atlantide Divers School, include bridges, chimneys and large archways, all crafted from stone, as well as the skeletal remains of trees.

Perhaps the best part is water clarity. A mountain spring feeds the lake, creating visibility of 200 feet and greater — enough that as you wander the village, it’d be easy to forget you’re underwater if it weren’t for the fact that your legs are behind, not under, you.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 59–79°F
Average Viz: 230 feet


LAKE THINGVALLAVATN
Iceland

Three hundred feet of visibility is the norm here — enough to leave most divers stunned. “You really can’t believe what you’re seeing your first time there,” says Monika Jovisic, with Dive.is. “It’s so relaxing because everything is so clear.” And in places, it's the only place in the world where you can touch two continental plates, Eurasia and North America.

Granted, there’s not much fish life to speak of, given the frigid average water temperature.

“But you forget about the cold as soon as you look around,” says Jovisic of the wide, sheer rock outcroppings of this tectonic ridgeline, most dramatic at the site known as the Silfra crack, the rift between two continental plates that empties into the lake. “Really, it’s a kind of floating meditation,” she adds. “You have to see it to understand.”

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 36–39°F
Average Viz: 300 feet


ANHUMAS ABYSS
Mato Grosso Do Sul, Brazil

scuba diving in underground lakes

MIDDLE EARTH: Sunbeams sifting through gaps in the rock bring out the colors of the magnesium and limestone in the walls. Access to the Anhumas chamber and its otherworldly treasures is restricted to 18 rappellers each day, and tours are offered daily.

Marcio Cabral

You’ll rappel the equivalent of 26 floors to enter this cave outside the town of Bonito in west-central Brazil — that is, if you’re willing to lower yourself into the darkness. The experience begins through a slit in the rock face, no more than 10 feet across. Then for 15 feet, you face nothing but stone walls.

“Everything is really tight, then you are free and you see that, at the top, this cave is as wide as a soccer field,” says Alisson Buzinhani, director of Eco Adventures Travel, which runs tours to the site.

The biggest thrill for most is the drop — which some tourism sites warn visitors with heart problems or fear of heights to keep away from. But for divers, the next thrill is finding the fossils of sloths and anteaters, as well as stalagmites shaped like torpedoes that lie beneath the surface of the lake in depths of 49 to 262 feet. Marine life is limited to two fish species, both small, one known to bite. But look past the sardinelike specimens and you’ll find inspiration. “The light is best between 8:30 and 10 a.m.,” says Buzinhani. “At that hour, you feel like you’re swimming under God’s spotlight.”

Bonus: Brazil offers world-class diving at places like Fernando de Noronha and is a lovely cultural experience.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 61–66°F
Average Viz: 30 feet


RIVERS

RIO NEGRO
Amazonas, Brazil

scuba diving brazil

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT: The Rio Negro is one of the Amazon River’s largest tributaries and blackwater rivers in the world. The South American river is believed to have almost 1,000 species.

Brandon Cole

“It’s like someone in a crowd walking up to you and poking their index finger into your chest,” says underwater photographer Brandon Cole of the experience of snorkeling alongside the pink river dolphins of Brazil as they probe him with that long beak.

These dolphins, known locally as boto, are one of five species worldwide to call fresh water home. For North Americans, the day-trip departure spot of Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas, is the closest place for encountering this oddity.

“They’re certainly freakish,” says Cole, “with their tiny eyes, bulbous foreheads and black, peglike teeth. They’re not Flipper.

“Plus, they’re big, chunky — they don’t look streamlined, and they don’t look sexy.”

But their bizarre looks are a large part of the appeal. Add to that the fact that this stretch of environment is unique: Here — at the Meeting of the Waters, where the Rio Negro meets the Solimões River — flooding is common during rainy season. This means the water level can be 25 feet higher, and thus the flow can depart far from the rivers’ natural course.

Says Cole, “We were swimming over top and around palm trees.” Fun as that may be, the wider river makes it more difficult to spot the dolphins. That, and higher water levels are largely rain-influenced, meaning colder water and visibility that ranges from inches to a couple of feet. Says Cole, “You have to expect extreme conditions.”

Bonus: Green anacondas are found in Brazil's Bonito region in the southwest.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: May through November
Water Temp: 75°F
Average Viz: A few inches to a few feet


VERZASCA RIVER
Ticino, Switzerland

Strong currents make for a thrilling ride in the mountains of southern Switzerland, although the downside is that they limit most dives to roughly 30 to 40 minutes, depending on a site’s navigational hazards. But this gin- clear river is worth the trek for its massive stone formations polished smooth by flow. The scene is made prettier still where the river passes over top white stones, giving the water a turquoise effect similar to that of white-sand Caribbean beaches. But you certainly won’t forget where you are, thanks to frigid water and unending views of the Swiss Alps overhead.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Summer
Water Temp: 46–50°F
Average Viz: 60 feet


ADAMS RIVER
British Columbia, Canada

“It’s like a light switch goes off in their minds and suddenly they all head upriver,” says Copper Island Diving owner Paul Downie of the sockeye salmon spawn occurring every October. Downie drops in at the location — only the mouth is deep enough for diving — via boat, and there, visitors are packed in among the tomato-red swimmers like, well, sardines. Sharing the river are also Chinook salmon, bull trout, rainbow trout and freshwater codfish. Depending on the year, says Downie, “it’s possible to see hundreds [of sockeye salmon], or hundreds of thousands.”

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Mid-October
Water Temp: Mid- to high 30s F
Average Viz: 20 to 40 feet


CRYSTAL RIVER
Florida, USA

diving with manatees

SIREN CALL: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service upgraded the West Indian manatee from endangered to threatened earlier this year, but there are still several rules in place to protect manatees in Florida. You can’t pursue, touch or dive on scuba around the animals.

Carol Grant

Dustin Molina’s strangest day as a guide for Plantation Inn’s Adventure Center started when he spied a 2,500-pound female manatee gnawing on the anchor lines of the dive boat.

“We were still in the water when she swam toward me to grab me by the waist and take me underwater,” says Molina. “She was showing me she was available. I’m pretty sure she wanted to get my number.”

This was at King Spring, which, along with Three Sisters, is one of the two main sites the snorkel-tour outfitter visits in winter, when the animals tend to be friskier. Says Molina, “King tends to be the living room where they interact more, and Three Sisters is the bedroom where they mostly just sleep.”

Encounters can happen just about anywhere, and the Sunshine State has a number of manatee hot spots. In Crystal River they can be had year-round. In summer, they tend to be spotted farther from the springs, out in flat areas where they graze on sea grasses.

Says Molina, “In the five years I’ve been here, we haven’t been skunked yet on a trip.”

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 73°F at the springs
Average Viz: 50 to 100 feet at the springs


CAVES

MOLNAR JANOS
Budapest, Hungary

This limestone cave is unlike any other in that you can take a subway to the starting point in Budapest, Hungary, one block from a major hospital. Next, you enter a tunnel located on the side of a mountain. Inside, the cave is a wealth of diverse finds.

“You can expect a lot of nooks and crannies with seashell fossils and cool things like pink and white crystals, which you don’t really see everywhere because crystals don’t usually form underwater,” says cave explorer Jared Hires.

He adds, “Just don’t expect a ton of stalactites.”

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: Upper 50s to mid-70s F
Average Viz: 100 feet


CHINHOYI CAVES
Makonde, Zimbabwe

This Zimbabwean limestone cave system, well suited to open-water and technical divers alike, is still in the process of being mapped. Enter a pool of cobalt water lit by the sun; this space is a former cave, its ceiling now collapsed. Known as the Wonder Hole, it gives divers a fisheye-lens view of the surround- ing trees and sheer rock walls. Continue away from the light to find rooms, including the Sleeping Pool, where a long-standing practice of coin tossing results in divers uncovering rare valuables, including the Rhodesian penny, known for its hole in the middle.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 72°F
Average Viz: 120-plus feet


ORDA CAVE
Perm Krai, Russia

scuba diving in caves

WHAT LIES BENEATH: In the mid-1930s, Jack Sheppard made what’s believed to be the first scuba dive in a cave. He used a homemade respirator to venture into Swildon’s Hole in England. But cavern exploration traces its roots to at least the 1700s.

Viktor Lyagushkin

No other cave in the world is so shape-shifting, so ethereal that it changes literally from one dive to the next.

The white gypsum crystal formations of Orda Cave, under the Ural Mountains 900 miles east of Moscow, are chalky and fine, making them easily subjected to waterflow.

They dissolve, almost appearing to melt they’re so soluble, so much so that local cave instructors relish what they might see next — just as hikers find the shapes of cats, horses and angels in the clouds.

Moreover, as the formations change subtly and gradually, so too does the cave itself. Over time, certain passageways become blocked and new ones appear. But beyond the ever-evolving walls and formations, this site — the world’s largest underwater gypsum cave — is also worth the trip for its length. To date, it’s known to stretch 3.2 miles. Inside, the rooms are anything but claustrophobia-inducing, opening to cathedral-like spaces spanning as much as 262 feet across.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 41°F
Average Viz: 150 feet


EMERGENCE DU RESSEL
Lot, France

Emergence Du Ressel

IN THE LOOP: The main passage of Emergence du Ressel forks just after you enter it — one passage is 30 feet deep and the other is 60 feet deep. Passageways in caves in France’s Lot and Dordogne areas are usually roomy enough to accommodate scooters and back-mounted rigs.

Jason Brown

You would never know it is there — the entrance to this cave dive is in a river flowing through the French countryside,” says underwater photographer Jason Brown of Emergence du Ressel, located in the Lot region, which is to Europe what Florida and Mexico are to North America.

“A rope tied to a tree disappears into this brown, murky water,” he says, and this line is the only method of finding a way inside.

“Suddenly, the water becomes crystal clear,” he says. “And you look back up and you have a brown river flowing over your head. It’s quite surreal.”

He adds, “This cave is just a long series of tubes, like swimming through a long corridor.”

This makes for straightforward navigation that’s no more difficult than walking along a river.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 55°F
Average Viz: 45 to 60 feet


CAVERNS

CASA CENOTE
Yucatan, Mexico

scuba diving mexico cenote

THE DARK SIDE: The Mayan people living in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula believed cenotes to be entrances to the underworld — or Xibalba — where gods lived and spirits entered after death. The cenotes were also an important source of water for these people.

Jason Brown

Casa is truly a one-cenote-fits-all situation, located just outside the town of Tulum.

“Casa Cenote is quite unique because it’s separated from the ocean by only a few meters of land — the beach is at one side of the road, the cenote is at the other,” says Jo Armitage, PADI Course Director at Pro Dive Mexico. “This means that you get the best of both worlds on a dive: saltwater creatures like moray eels and tarpon can be found along with freshwater fish that you are more accustomed to seeing on a cenote dive.

“The cenote is shallow, and stretches like a river into the jungle. The twists and turns mean you don’t know what to expect around the corner.” The jungle can be seen during a dive or snorkel, with the trees providing canopy over a handful of cenote pools, and tree roots fingering into the passageways. Even loggerhead turtles occasionally traverse a passage from the sea to spend time there as well.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 72–77°F
Average Viz: 100 feet
prodiveinternational.com


PICCANINNIE PONDS
South Australia

At first, this cave system in the Mount Gambier region of South Australia seems like nothing more than a sinkhole with an algae-covered bottom. But those with cave training can slip inside and down the vertical opening known as the Chasm — a sheer-walled canyon dropping to 115 feet. To the west, they can explore the Cathedral, with white limestone walls.

This area, like central Florida, is studded with a handful of caves and sinkholes accommodating any experience level, from snorkelers to trimix divers. One must-see highlight is the nearby Ewens Pond, a series of three pools with life ranging from eels to bream, and freshwater crayfish and mullet.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 50–60°F
Average Viz: 100-plus feet


DEVIL’S DEN
Florida, USA

“We get open-water divers who have been certified two days to those who have 30 years of experience,” says Megan Bryant, part of the team at Devil’s Den, a privately owned underwater spring in Williston, Florida, roughly a 90-minute drive from Orlando.

This prehistoric sinkhole stretches 120 feet across, with its deepest point at 50 feet. The site has yielded countless fossils dating back to the Pleistocene Age, many of which can be seen at the University of Florida’s Museum of Natural History.

Fossils aside, this site, bathed in ambient light, gives divers the chance to weave around and behind boulders that lean against the base of the den. And snorkelers can enjoy views of beams above and fish below.

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 72°F
Average Viz: 50-plus feet


BEN’S CAVERN
Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas

Grand Bahama has no rivers or lakes, which is why it’s perhaps surprising this cenote exists.

For divers, it’s a guided experience only, starting with a climb down a ladder. There, 30 feet of fresh water sits atop the river of salt water below. The tour winds along the ceiling of the cave, then the bottom, past legions of stalactites and stalagmites, making a giant loop. Throughout the entire dive, it’s possible to spy an endemic remipede.

“It looks like a white, segmented worm or centipede with gigantic jaws,” says Cristina Zenato, cave diving instructor for UNEXSO. “Jill Yager, the biologist who discovered it, jokes that we’re lucky that they’re just a couple inches, not 6 feet, long.”

DIVE CONDITIONS
Season: Year-round
Water Temp: 74°F
Average Viz: 100 feet

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