Oftentimes, experiencing the unique and lesser-known underwater environments can be even more enriching and memorable than common (yet still amazing) reef dives. Have you ever considered diving in a pond? Under ice? Or in cavernous tunnels? Maybe it’s your time to start! Scroll down to learn about unfamiliar and yet-to-be-discovered underwater habitats.

Freshwater diving

Stick your drysuit on and dive into the ice-cold waters of the Silfra Fissure in Iceland. With incredible visibility and an underwater topography like no other, this is the only place in the world where you can dive between two continental shelves.

If you’re more interested in historical man-made underwater structures, check out Shicheng in Qiandao Lake, China. Known as the ‘Lost City of the East’, here you can dive amidst a city that was once flooded by the construction of a dam in the 1950s. Ancestral homes remain, whilst their people were displaced.

Another remarkable freshwater dive site is Ewens Pond in Mount Gambier, Australia. With such clear visibility and stillness, you can see the unique vegetation actively photosynthesising and producing bubbles! Freshwater wildlife such as crayfish and eels inhabit this pond, and you can also get the chance to discover new types of marine plants and underwater freshwater springs.

Ice Diving

Not considered by many, and for a very understandable reason, is ice diving. Depending on where you decide to visit, there are different levels of experience required to dive in certain spots. Always check with your chosen operator before booking a dive. Baffin Island in Canada is one of the safest yet most magnificent ice diving spots in the world. Here, you can dive under icebergs that have been snowed together, making them much safer than free-flowing icebergs, and if you’re experienced enough, you can even dive between the cracks.

The wildlife that inhabits these waters is peculiar and spectacular. You might encounter beluga and bowhead whales, bearded and ringed seals, and with the 24 hours of daylight in the early summer months, even catch glimpses of polar bears trekking and walruses chilling. It’s freezing but you will be rewarded with an experience so different from any other!

Alternative epic places to brave ice diving include Russia’s White Sea - a reef under a sheet of ice, and Hokkaido, Japan - home to an astounding diversity of cold water invertebrates, seals, and sea birds.

Cave and cavern diving

If you’re looking for an extensive, diverse, and illuminating array of different caves and caverns, taking a dive trip to the freshwater springs of Florida might be a worthwhile idea. In addition to diving through, in, and around caverns and caves, you can also see vast schools of freshwater fish, and dugong sea cows, munching away on the sea grass and vegetation that also thrive in this unique habitat.

Another cool cave diving location is the Chandelier Cave in Palau, Micronesia. With an immense collection of overhanging limestone stalactites, the Chandelier Cave is a unique and stunning dive site.

If you’re interested in ancient carvings, the cavernous tunnels of Cueva del Chico in the Dominican Republic will not fail to impress. Here, you will be able to discover unique limestone formations, in addition to petroglyphs that were created by the Taino Civilisation. These are Indigenous people of the Caribbean that were wiped out and displaced from the Dominican Republic in the 1500s by European colonisers.

Looking for unique diving adventures and hidden underwater stories? Don’t wait to discover these lesser-known dive sites that only a few have explored!

Written by Kayli Wouters

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