Pile Lake (the sunken forest)

Borne Sulinowo town lies in the Pomeranian Lakeland, between Szczecinek and Czaplinek, not a long way from Szczecin and Koszalin. The town has become popular among divers due to a unique diving site in a lake nearby.

As I come from Świnoujście, I am quite familiar with the kind of architecture that accompanied Soviet military bases set up in Poland at the time of the Soviet Bloc. Świnoujście was home to a large Red Army base along with a surrounding residential zone for the soldiers' families. In Borne Sulinowo I saw the same kind of buildings I had already seen in Świnoujście. It used to be a Soviet-only town . After the "friendly" army left Poland, Borne Sulinowo has been experiencing a gradual influx of Polish people. Not all the buildings have been renovated and inhabited, but I think that with time the town will be fully reclaimed.

Despite their withdrawal, the Red Army left a few mysteries and impediments that have made it difficult to transform Borne Sulinowo to a normal residential area. A mined island on Pile Lake was one of them. The word has it that it was decided to simply detonate the place so that sappers wouldn't risk their lives with dangerous and laborious mine clearing of nobody-actually-knew-what.

The effect is one of the most attractive diving destinations in Poland. What happened is that the explosion unexpectedly didn't shatter the island into pieces but a slice of land largely overgrown with trees went underwater. The vacuum that developed under the island during the explosion must have sucked in massive amounts of water, which in turn weakened the island's base. Although submerged, most of the trees still stand, creating one of the greatest underwater landscapes in Poland.

Where exactly is it and how to get there? When I first went to Borne Sulinowo, I had thoroughly consulted a friend on where to enter the water in order to get quickly to the sunken forest. Nevertheless, since the tongue is the rudder of our ship, I decided to ask a local anyway. And the first pedestrian I met said that he had frequently seen divers in Borne Sulinowo and knew the way well. I got to the right beach in no time. The way goes along Borne Sulinowo to one side and along the lake to the other, although you can't see the latter from the road. When the main road turns slightly left, you have to make for the lake and drive a narrow asphalt path built for pedestrians rather than car traffic and go straight all the way. Driving this part I felt like in a theme park. When the asphalt ends, you keep driving ahead a relatively hard road with cobble stones and the like. The hard part also ends and you keep driving slowly ahead. Then you pass metal fencing to the right and enter the forest, where you drive past old buildings to the left (called bunkers by the tourists and the old shooting range by the local people). Around fifty meters further you turn right into another forest path. The path is going down, which is good news since a lake needs a syncline that could collect water. You are close. You get to a large clearing, most likely a spot where the tourists and the locals gather in summer for sunbathing. Now you can see the lake right beyond the clearing.

On reaching the shore you immediately see the island to the right. You can also see the part with the sunken forest. You enter the water in the northern part of the lake and have to "work" some time on the surface to get to the island, about a hundred-meter swim. When you pass reeds from the east, you can already see the few treetops rising out of the water near the island's shoreline. Now you go underwater and make for the south-west. You can find the forest sixteen to ten meters deep.

Keep in mind that lots of people come there to fish - logically, most fish gathers where it has a place to hide. You have to look out for fishing lines, hooks, decoys, etc. Under no circumstances should you dive there without a knife. And don't be surprised to find pieces of metal debris left by the explosion.

Another thing of interest for a diver is the structure of the bottom at five to seven meters, which very much resembles that of Hańcza Lake. Vertical loam walls and huge blocks of rock add to the beautiful complexity of the bottom. Many trees still have bark on their trunks, which is a clear proof that they were submerged quite recently.

As far as plants and animals are concerned, you can expect to see whatever you can find in most Polish lakes. The water transparecy is more exceptional, though, and never goes below five meters. The place is really unusual. If you have a bit of luck, you can spy an eel on a tree or a herd of perches making their way past thick trunks.