St. Leon-Rot See

The St. Leon-Rot See is one of the busy flooded gravel pits that the German dive scene has adopted as a year round training ground, sitting roughly between Heidelberg and Karlsruhe in Baden Württemberg. It is the kind of inland water where a club turns up every weekend with twelve cars and a table for coffee, and where you will learn something about kit and water from the more experienced divers sipping from their flasks next to yours. Maximum depth sits around 25 metres in the deepest basin, with a shallow weed fringed shelf around the edges that makes the first ten minutes of any dive quietly interesting. Entry is from the grassy shore next to the marked parking area, and a short finned swim puts you over the drop off. The lake has a set of deliberately placed features for training and play. Submerged training platforms at staged depths, a small mock up wreck, and a line of pipes make navigation exercises genuinely useful rather than abstract. Intermediate level is the right call for the full 25 metre profile. Inside the thermocline the temperature drops fast, and in winter the surface freezes while the deep water stays in mid single digits. A dry suit is the honest choice for October through May and is very much the norm even in summer for anyone diving below the layer. Fauna here is the freshwater European mix. Pike hang in the mid water column near the platforms, perch school in the shallow weed, tench hide in the silt and the occasional large carp drifts through. Visibility typically sits between 4 and 10 metres and varies with the algae and recent rain in classic inland fashion. Access is generally open through the warmer months, with winter availability depending on ice and the club schedule. Bring your club card or a reciprocal membership paperwork, the access system is cheerfully old school.