It was late evening when I rolled onto the ferry in Frederikshavn, Denmark. The hum of the engines and the salty breeze signalled the start of a long-awaited expedition. As the ferry glided towards Gothenburg, Sweden, I sank into my reclining chair, my mind drifting back to a conversation with a Norwegian diving friend over two decades ago. His tales of the fjords had sparked a dream, and now, I was chasing it.

Denoting it as a highland is a bit of an embellishment, causing some Scandinavian brethren in Norway and Sweden, who have real mountains in their outback, to scoff. Afterall, the highest “peaks” are only about 150m above sea level. However, in Denmark, which is otherwise largely flat and predominately farmland, it stands out—and for good reason. It is picturesque!

Generously scattered among rolling hills, which are draped in forest or heath, are plenty of freshwater lakes and they are among the cleanest and clearest in the country.  

As one of my good friends and diving partners usually says: We are lucky with a lot of things living here in Denmark, but if you like cycling in the mountains, skiing or diving in warm waters... then you are not super well-placed as a Dane. I myself usually see my dives in Denmark as training, understood in terms that if you can complete a wreck dive in Øresund and come up with a useful picture or two and a big smile on your face, then you are as well prepared as you can be to dive the rest of the world.

The value is not measured in money, but in knowledge. Due to extremely favorable conditions, the wrecks and the remains found are virtual time capsules, waiting to tell their stories about people and their way of living in the past, about the countries and the cultures of Europe.

 

The late summer sun was warm, and the easterly breeze promised a comfortable boat ride. We were in Søgne, on the coast of southern Norway, and the owner of One Ocean Dive Resort, the pasta king Carlo Golfetto, welcomed us to his aptly-named Culinary Adventure. It promised to be a tasty weekend, with interesting dives and delicious meals.

The dive equipment was packed, and I would soon head to Gothenburg-Landvetter Airport to catch my flight to Helsinki in Finland. It was time for another wonderful weekend of diving in the spirit of history, under the leadership of Project Baltacar.

Arriving in Helsinki, I picked up my fully packed dive bag. It weighed 22.5kg, and the maximum weight allowed by Finnair was 23kg. At the car rental company, I met my dive friends from Stockholm and England. The plan for the afternoon was to drive from Helsinki to Hanko, which takes about two hours.

“It takes years to get to know the German shipwrecks properly, to become familiar with these amazing shipwrecks, and to understand the sense of history that still pervades Scapa Flow both beneath and above the waves.”

Rod Macdonald, author of Dive Scapa Flow (Whittles Publishing)

For over 15 years, I have been a dive buddy to an underwater photographer. I have seen how the technology has developed, how the images have become more creative, and how more divers are getting underwater cameras. Nowadays, it is almost unusual if there are not several cameras on a dive boat or at a dive site, alongside all the other dive equipment.

Competing in underwater photography is fantastic and fun but it can also be extremely frustrating. It is an adjudicated sport, and there are probably as many opinions about the photo entries as there are people judging them.