Åland Islands

The wrecks are reached by boat on day trips planned around what the group wants to see and what the weather allows, and when conditions are good a boat can run a full day out with two dives. Weather decides the day: when the wind blows from the wrong direction for the home port, the skippers can haul the boats out and launch them on the other side of the island to dive in more sheltered conditions, and the Plus is a sheltered fallback. Scuba diving in Åland is a licensed activity, authorised by the Provincial Government, and some wrecks carry their own restrictions on top of that.

Underwater, the draw is the ships. The wrecks mix wartime losses with sailing ships from the era when the islands ran windjammers. The archipelago counts among the most wreck-dense areas of the Baltic, and its low salinity and the absence of shipworm mean old timber hulls are preserved and steel ships break down very slowly. At the Planet the clay seabed can cut the visibility. The water is layered even in summer: on an August dive it held 14 °C from the surface to about 12 m, 8 °C at 35–40 m and 4–5 °C below 40 m.

The area suits divers who come for maritime history and are comfortable in cold, dark water. Recreational divers have their own list of wrecks to 35 m, and the Planet gives a shallower, sheltered option. Below 35 m the list continues into technical depths, down to expedition targets beyond 70 m. No wreck may be entered and nothing may be taken from one, so divers hoping to penetrate holds should look elsewhere.