It’s been one full year since Dubai has solidified its status as the world’s true land of all possibilities, when Deep Dive Dubai, the deepest pool in the world, opened its gates to the public. In the meantime, more cars have been added to its impressive – and eerie – underwater garage.
Strictly speaking, a garage is a place where you park or store a motor vehicle, but the vehicles hidden in the belly of Deep Dive Dubai will never again see the light of day. If they do, it won’t be to roam the country’s roads again, but only to be replaced because of damage caused by the 14 million liters (3.7 million gallons) of freshwater inside the pool.
They are part of the Sunken City experience, spread across two levels, and accessible to anyone with the proper certification. As of the time of press, this collection includes several motorcycles, including a Ducatti and Harley-Davidson, a Mercedes-Benz CLK convertible, and the recent additions of a Ferrari F1 and a Ford Mustang. These two were added less than six months ago, in a bid to enhance the experience inside the Sunken City.
Deep Dive Dubai is a tourist attraction, and research and training facility that has been designed to cater to a wide range of customers, regardless of experience and certification. It’s built across several levels, as the videos at the bottom of the page will show, accessible according to certification. The most basic package is for snorkeling, which allows beginners to peer inside without leaving the surface of the water. Doing laps is not allowed: you don’t spend five years building the world’s deepest pool to allow swimmers to splash around and not even venture inside. Freediving is allowed to a depth of 5 meters (16.4 feet).
Photo: Deep Dive Dubai
Jarrod Jablonski, pioneering technical diver and record-breaking cave diver, and a successful businessman, is the director of Deep Dive Dubai. He says the pool was designed as a space that allows free exploration and training without damage to the environment. There is no marine life for this purpose; also for this reason, they opted for the Sunken City slash apocalyptic theme, because it’s something you’re not going to find by diving into the ocean. Anyone can dive into the ocean to see shipwrecks and marine life, he says, but visiting an abandoned, flooded city with everything still intact is a once-in-a-lifetime-kind of thing.
As noted above, there are several zones inside the pool. Down to 28 meters (92 feet), you will find storefronts, working streetlights, pay phones, benches, ATMs, and even a tree. At this depth, there’s an apartment with an art and music room, and a donut garage with the Mercedes. This may be an older model, but it’s already an Instagram staple, because visitors can just hop inside and take photos. At 38 meters (125 feet), there’s another apartment and another garage, with bikes, the Mustang and the Ferrari, as well as a gym, arcade games, pinball machines, a pool table, a life-size Stormtrooper and a LEGO-man.
This entire area can be explored by divers with PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) certification, basic and advanced. Beyond that, only highly qualified trimix-trained technical divers are allowed. This is where the pool becomes a plunge shaft of just 10 meters (33 feet) in diameter, with concrete walls and graffiti art, which goes all the way down to 60 meters (197 feet).
For the safety of the divers, there is a hyperbaric chamber on the premises, and two underwater habitats (at 6 and 21 meters / 19.6 and 69 feet), where divers can surface to dry air and even remove their equipment, if there’s an emergency. There are 56 underwater cameras and 27 speakers, which play ambient sounds but also allow for communication with the technicians in the observation rooms. 164 underwater lights offer guiding for explorers who choose to go without a guide and serve as mood-setters. If the pool is used to shoot content for all types of productions, the lights can be dimmed completely or adjusted to the requirements of the script.
Photo: Deep Dive Dubai
Also on the topic of safety, we should note that all the water in the pool is filtered every six hours, thanks to the revolutionary filtration system that uses NASA-developed tech and UV radiation. Divers are not allowed to bring their own equipment (with minor exceptions), lest they contaminate the water.
Deep Dive Dubai is located in Nad Al Sheba, 15 minutes from Downtown Dubai, and the exterior building resembles an oyster as a tribute to the country’s history of pearl-diving. Prices start at 400 AED for snorkeling (US$109 at the current exchange rate), 1,110 AED ($300) for freediving and 1,800 AED ($490) for the basic package for beginners, and 1,500 AED ($408) just to schedule a Trimix dive. Non-diving friends and family can also take part in the fun, thanks to windows in the first layer of the pool, which allow for interaction with the divers.
If you’re not into water sports and diving, here’s a video tour of the place.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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