Scuba Diving/Drift Diving Switzerland?

[shotthebreeze]

Has anyone been lake diving or drift diving in Switzerland? It looks like something I might be interested in. Photos attached:

 

[chrisch]

I don't know where the photos came from - they look nice. My experience of Switzerland is very cold deep lakes. Switzerland has lots of divers, but most of them dive in the Red Sea and places like that.
There are a few good dives (a wreck at 45m in Lake Geneva for example) but its not somewhere I would make much effort to travel to. Its only a 4 hour drive for us but the better diving is in the cave systems just north in the Jura region of France.

Chris

 

[milkathecow]

Diving in switzerland is rather a nice thing (ok i'm from out there... but not there anymore ).

There are really cool dives like altitude diving, ice diving around various lakes.

The first photo is from the Val Versasca in the Tessin area (italian part of switzerland), slick polished stones and rocks.

Chrisch... hmm guess you didn't go diving loads in switzerland you'd be amazed when you see 40 divers mass up on saturday-sunday morning on some of the known dive sites of each of the lakes. Switzerland masses up the highest toll of divers per capita in the world... and i can assure you that they do dive... and not the red sea only lol... they actually love their lakes and ****Vis diving (hmm that could be a new PADI speciality ).

All i can say is that i now own a DC in mallorca (spain) but the only thing i felt like doing when i went back to switzerland this winter was... noooo not go skiing... but just get down under... with friends in cold 4-5° Celsius waters... without salt... It was absolutely awsome

For caves i'm not aware, but for Wrecks : as you said, the Hirondelle in Lake Geneva, the FRANCE in Annecy (french lake), and a few things in lake of zurich, thun, constance, neuchatel and so on .

 

[chrisch]

...
The first photo is from the Val Versasca in the Tessin area (italian part of switzerland), slick polished stones and rocks.
....

Hi Olivier, I hope the new centre is going well. Which lake is this? Multimap cannot find "Val Versasca" or "Tessin". We have dived Maggiore a few times (both sides of the border) but the sites were not really suitable for the OP with just 25 dives.

We mostly dived Como and Garda when we lived in Milan. Again they are deep cold sites and need a drysuit and trimix to get the best out of them. We never managed to dive a couple more lakes that were on the way to the wife's boss' house in St Moritz. These were high altitude dives - again not perhaps ideal for the OP. I spoke to some divers there and their description was similar to the Italian lakes we dived in (well I think so my German is a bit rusty..)

Neuchatel is now our nearest. Do you have any details on the wreck?

The (French) caves are in the Doubs area, but again not ideal for a newish diver...

Not trying to put you off "shotthebreeze". Switzerland is a beautiful country with stunning scenery and fantasic huge impressive lakes, many over 300m deep. I just think its a long way from the US... Maybe combine it with a visit to Italy - the Portofino area offers some good diving and is about half a days drive south.

Chris

 

[milkathecow]

chrisch : I totally agree now with everything you say . The dives are not the "wonderworld" that a 50m vis diver would really enjoy with little dive experience. I would simply say that we do train OWD in lakes with 30cm vis... but it's a system shock

For the lake of neuchatel, if you speak french, have a check out on www.plongeur.com which is a french board to get more info, i don't know the lake really well, but i know there is stuff in there .

For the val verzasca it's at the end of the lago mayore... by Lugano and locarno on the swiss side. where you can get a good glass of wine and a few little nibbles after the dive have a look here : http://www.swissdivingschool.ch/

I would say that a dive trip around this area could be interesting in the following sense :
10 days :

Day 1 : Set up, getting the thing ready.
Day 2 : Val Verzasca
Day 3 : Lago maggiore
Day 4 : Portofino
Day 5 : Nice (france)
Day 6 : Break & visits
Day 7 : Porquerolle / port Cros (france)
Day 8 : Lake Lioson : Ice diving / altitude diving
Day 9 : Final Dive : Lake geneva
Day 10: Relaxing & home

This is a hard mileage tour, but could get quite a few divers in the water with a loooot of fun

The dive center is going good... under massive refurbishments... been here for 1.5 years so there's still to do to adapt to new regulations etc... but it's looking like it's going to be a "design" dive center ... my graphics designer background coming back, & my wife's interior decorator dream coming out too.

 

[chrisch]

...
For the val verzasca it's at the end of the lago mayore... by Lugano and locarno on the swiss side. where you can get a good glass of wine and a few little nibbles after the dive ...

Ahh... Lugano. Yes - too many languages in Switzerland. We took my nephew to Lugano when they came to visit us in Italy and he had the best ice-cream of his life. Its a very nice place. I have dived the little boat and helicopter mentioned on the website. Vis was about 2m....

Glad to hear its going well in Spain.

Chris

 

[chrisch]

shotthebreeze, I notice the Swiss school on Olivier's post do the dive that was your picture - its actually a river dive and they do PADI speciality courses to dive it - open to Open Water and above, plus all the gear rental and drysuit courses if you need/want them.

If you do decide to go make sure to have a great time!! That part of Switzerland is near Mount Blanc and the cable car trip to the top is something I would highly recommend. Just watch you nitrogen before the ascent to altitude...

Chris

 

[mad]

That's ValVerzasca with the best visibility! pictrures are very nice!

you must be lucky to find it like that

ciao, Marco

 

[Swisstoni]

For those who want a good website on dive spots in Switzerland: Plongée Passion - Tout sur la plongée dans les lacs Léman et Annecy (in french).