Norway is a geographical stunner : dramatic fjords, untamed wilderness. As regards scuba diving, very few knows about fairy creatures living in these cool coastal waters, somewhere along Norway’s west coast, ragged, spectacular and island-dotted, over 25’000km long.  And even fewer divers already tried black-water diving in the fjords, in sheltered places close to the coast, looking for amazing pelagic invertebrate encounters. There are not yet pictures of the gelatinous plankton forming the whole community of animals we have never seen before in Norway.

Only recently, it has been discovered that a couple of fjords house deep-sea corals, chimaeras and other deep-sea fish, as well as the deep-sea helmet jellyfish (Periphylla periphylla), in easily accessible diving, depths of 10 to max. 40 metres. A true wonderland for passionate observers and uw photographers, who can finally dive in shallow water and come across in at least a dozen species which normally live at depths far beyond all scuba-diving limits.

During the night, these fairy creatures migrate from the deepest bottoms and swim upward, towards their food.

During the day, our focus will be to observe various oddities : the worldwide shallowest reef of deep-water coral (it is usually found at about 200 / 300m depth) other than kelp forests, wrecks and steep walls full of colourful benthic species. Regular sightings include chimerae, several harmless sharks (as blackmouth dogfish), rays and the Atlantic hagfish, relative of lampreys.

Why here, in these fjords of Norway and nowhere else in Norway Sea ? (at least so far as we know). Because here the water is dark, no matter who many hours of day-lights per each day, since there is a thick (1 to 4 metres) dark layer of fresh water covering the underlying clear sea water. Dark does not mean that the visibility is poor since it can reach up to 20 metres.

Most of the dives will be from shore, in many different diving spots. Even taking tides into right consideration, currents are expected, as well as waves in the surf zone. Night dives will be in total darkness.  Of course, it is cold water diving (expected 8° to 12°C); dry-suit is recommended.