🇵🇱Poland

Before Entering

• Verify the exact site, current legal access and allowed activities. The Gdynia Maritime Office publishes both accessible and prohibited wreck information.
• Confirm the skipper files required departure details, checks IMGW marine warnings and has adequate communications, surface recovery, first aid and emergency oxygen.
• Know the planned maximum depth, overhead boundary, gas, expected visibility and safe turnaround points. Do not infer a permissible profile from the highest surviving part of a wreck.
• Wear cold-water exposure gear suited to the bottom temperature; plan conservative gas, buoyancy and thermal limits.
• Be equipped and trained for boat traffic, reduced visibility, entangling nets and fishing lines, sharp wreck metal, and possible wartime ordnance. Never touch suspected munitions.
• Drysuit diving, wreck penetration, trimix, decompression, winter ice and advanced freediving all require specific competence rather than an ordinary Open Water certification.
• For snorkeling or freshwater swimming, verify GIS bathing-water advisories, local flags, weather and protected shore zones. Never freedive alone.

A permit-exempt wreck is not guaranteed safe or bookable. An unsafe marine forecast or missing oxygen/retrieval plan is reason to change or cancel a dive.

For suspected decompression illness, gas embolism, hypothermia or serious diving injury, activate emergency medical services on 112 immediately and coordinate marine rescue through the skipper if offshore. Provide breathing oxygen when available and staff are trained, and follow dispatch instructions; do not take an injured diver directly to a chamber without medical direction. Gdynia's University Centre for Maritime and Tropical Medicine has a hyperbaric medicine and maritime rescue clinic that publishes an urgent consultation line +48 58 699 86 55, with emergency consultation possible around the clock; treatment and transfer must be coordinated. Warsaw also has a military medical hyperbaric unit. Remote lake or quarry trips require an additional evacuation plan and medical contact before entry.

The Gulf of Gdansk and Hel region includes protected Natura 2000 marine areas covering Puck Bay, the peninsula and coastal species, including grey seals and harbor porpoises. The Gdynia Maritime Office initiated additional protection-planning work in October 2026; visitors should follow the rules in force rather than assume the draft plan is already law. Avoid disturbing seagrass or shallow habitats and never chase marine mammals. WWF Poland advises staying at least 30 m away from a resting seal; report a seal needing assessment to its Blue Patrol.

Wrecks can contain human remains, historic artifacts and hazardous ordnance. Polish law prohibits damaging wreck structure or removing objects; non-exempt wrecks require legal verification. Lake Hancza is a protected nature reserve with explicitly designated diving and bathing shores. At Zakrzowek and managed quarries, follow site rules, marked boundaries and any closed-water signs. Dispose of waste ashore and do not collect living organisms.