Caskelot

Caskelot is a high-class sailing boat that sank in 1970, lying close to a skerry with a small lighthouse in the Åland archipelago in the Baltic Sea. Its nylon sails rest beside the wreck, and the instruments — including mileage gauges — remain readable on site. Caskelot and the nearby Dutch river barge Nederlander lie roughly 70 metres apart and are connected by a line that divers can follow between the two wrecks.

The wrecks sit in Baltic conditions typical of the area: visibility runs to around 15 metres on a good day, and the rocky seabed around the site is covered in mollusks and barnacles encrusting the rusted metal. The bottom depth of Nederlander is noted at 20 metres, giving a sense of the depth range shared by these paired sites.

Entry is from a boat, with a mooring buoy on Caskelot. Swell can be significant — waves are felt several metres below the surface — making the entry a controlled jump from a drifting boat when mooring on the buoy is not possible. Divers hold the buoy and wait while the boat repositions for each diver. The swell and cold Baltic water add to the challenge, and the overall conditions suit divers comfortable with open-water boat diving in low-visibility, low-temperature environments rather than calm tropical conditions.