If you think you’ve heard of all the unusual diving there is, think again! Although we’ve covered some pretty unusual dive sites and offbeat dive destinations in the past that include, diving between continents in Iceland, Ice diving in Antarctica and the Arctic White Sea, diving in Blue Holes or the Eagle’s Nest sinkhole in Florida and even diving in a Crater in Utah, this particular dive site just outside of Abilene, Texas takes the cake. Well if you haven’t already figured from the title, we’re talking about diving in a decommissioned (obviously!) Nuclear Missile Silo in Texas.
Dive Valhalla as the missile silo is known, gets its name from Norse mythology and is the largest indoor deep-diving training facility in the World. Decommissioned just after two years of completion in the early 1960’s during the cold war, the silo which used to house a 82-foot- (25-m-) long nuclear-tipped Atlas missile before was left to fill up with groundwater when abandoned. The 1,288 ton (1,159 m tons) concrete and steel cylindrical “pool” is 60-foot (18-m-) wide and drops to a depth of 127 feet (38 m) with nearly 2 million gallons (7.6 million liters) of clear dive-able water in it.
Owned by the Hannifins (of Family Scuba Center in Midland, Texas) who bought the silo on 11 acres of land, curiosity got the better of them and they wanted to dive in the silo to see what was in the water. It wasn’t long before fellow instructors thought it was a cool site to teach students doing their deep-diving certification and other training which prompted the Hannifins to convert the silo from a residential property to a commercial one. Today this flooded former missile silo is a unique site that conducts a number of certifications including deep, night, altitude, rescue, mixed-gas and rebreather specialties.
While there’s not much to see when you dive in this missile silo except some debris that crisscrosses the shaft at around 110ft beyond which you can’t go deeper, diving here is more for the thrill factor and the fact that it’s a bit of an oddity more than anything else. Besides, how many people can say they got to go diving in a Nuclear Missile Silo?
The Silo however makes a great training site which is what it is primarily used for. For one it’s an altitude dive (2,420 feet above sea level) and a deep dive and secondly, it’s a controlled environment making it easy for instructors to keep a close eye on everyone. The visibility is great which is more that can be said about lakes in the area and the silo’s depth is ample enough for conducting technical training. It’s even been used for freediving classes as the conditions are more than favorable.
For more details and to organize a trip to Dive Valhalla contact Family Scuba Center in Midland, Texas, at (866) 217-2822, (432) 686-7333 or at www.familyscuba.com. You can dive here only through reservations with a minimum number of divers in a group needed to secure the reservation if not part of a scheduled class.
