Diving in Den Osse

Date of Dive:
September 8, 2024

Location of Dive:
Den Osse, The Netherlands

Noticeable Sightings
Moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita)
Small hermit crab (Diogenes pugilator)

I was so keen to finally be able to dive in The Netherlands (apart from the freshwater dives in the Vinkeveense Plassen of course) and here we are! This dive was part of the Scuba Challenge, I mentioned in this blog post. Our goal for this dive was to count the number of certain species, so my buddy and I decided to collect this data on hermit crabs, anemones, and nudibranches. Though the latter was more wishful thinking than a realistic sighting (they do live there but there aren’t too many and they are incredibly hard to spot), we did sea 2 hermit crabs and a bunch of anemones.

Though we weren’t actively counting them, we also saw a massive swarm of moon jellyfish! These jellies don’t really sting, so I was able to swam through them and really look at them up close. The sun hit the water in a way that made them look ethereal. It feels really unnatural and slightly scary to swim through a swarm of jellies but it was worth it.

Before diving in The Netherlands, I always thought the visibility would be really bad and everything would be grey and ‘boring’ but that was far from my experience! The water was super clear and the red algae gave everything so much colour. Not only that, but it was teeming with life! Everywhere you looked you were guaranteed to see tons of crabs in all colours and sizes. Little fish and shrimps darted away in front of you, and even comb jellies could be seen when paying close attention. Though unfortunately no nudibranches, I was seriously impressed with the beauty here.

All in all, I would definitely recommend diving in Zeeland if you have the opportunity. The Netherlands is such an underrated location for diving in my opinion and I’ll definitely be back! In fact, I’ve already booked two more dives around here to hopefully catch the cuttlefish mating season. So stay tuned!