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Slovakia – Quarries, Tajchy & Reservoirs

Away from the Danube plain, Slovak divers use what mining and hydropower left behind. In the Turiec and Žilina area small limestone quarries such as Šútovo (the home water of the Martin club Hippocampus, with a sunken kitchen, bathtubs and a van body) and Strečno–Nezbud are the training lakes; in Spiš the flooded Kvetnica quarry above Poprad is looked after by the Poprad club Vodnár. Around Banská Štiavnica, the medieval silver-mining town and UNESCO site, the 'tajchy' – reservoirs built from the 16th to 18th century to drive the mine machinery – are clear, cold and small; Richňava (21 m) is the classic. Large dams – Liptovská Mara, Orava, Ružín, Domaša, Palcmanská Maša – are 20–50 m deep with poor visibility near the surface and clearer, colder water below. Two drinking-water dams (Nová Bystrica, Turček) are in water-protection zone I and banned, the High Tatra lakes need a nature-protection permit, and the once-famous diving in the flooded Dubník opal mine was stopped by the mining authority. Most data come from the Czech-Slovak diver database stranypotapecske.cz.

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