Gulen Wall Dives

Intro

When I arrived in Gulen in mid-August, they were having some unseasonably bad wind and rain which prevented going out to the wrecks (which are much more exposed) so we did some dives at local “signature” spots. For anybody else going to Gulen, I’ll document a couple of them and post some photos. Note that the shooting conditions were tough due to runoff / low visibility and dark conditions. The visibility was pretty good deep but there was very little light and I was doing primarily natural light photographs.

“Yonagulen” Wall

This wall is named after the famed Yonaguni dive site of submerged ruins in Japan. I’ve never been to Yonaguni, but I’ve seen plenty of pictures and this wall structure actually does have some of the same structure of “stepped” plateaus leading down to very, very deep. It isn’t as dramatic as the structures in Japan and instead has more of a natural structure but is nonetheless very interesting.

We were dropped in a shallower area and told to swim in the direction of a specific mountain. I took a compass heading right before getting in the water and then dropped in, oriented, and started swimming. It took a little longer than I expected, but eventually I started to see the steep drop-offs and we headed along the wall and noticed the unique structures.

Below are some pictures I took of both the structures and also some of the wildlife. I had a wide angle lens so the wildlife shots are not the greatest but I found the one with the crab and a clam in the claws to be interesting.

Troll Wall

As I understand it, when Orjan and Monica were out looking at interesting, potential dive sites, they hit a “dud” but then went around the corner and found a very interesting wall. They named it “Troll Wall” since there are some overhangs and small cave-like areas where they thought trolls would live.

Orjan had warned me that it was a tough site to photograph and it was made near impossible due to the poor visibility and very, very dark conditions. I did two dives on this site during my visit. Below are some pictures from them which I’ve tried to depict the site but, quite honestly, they don’t quite do it justice.

I have been experimenting with an Insta360 camera (primarily for wreck interiors — stay tuned!) but took it on the dive and spent a little time seeing how it works on dives outside of wrecks. I took one video as we were finishing the deeper portion of the wall and coming up the slope to head back to the entry point.

This video is hosted on YouTube and is a 360 video so you can move, rotate, look up/down, etc. either by moving your mobile device which will use the gyro inside to detect direction or you can use your mouse. Give it a try!

Final Thoughts

If you are diving in Gulen, I can highly recommend both walls. They offer really interesting and unique underwater rock formations and also have a lot of wildlife if you slow down and look around. They are both very close to the Gulen Dive Resort.