Dennis Bakhuis

Dive site · sea · The Zeeland Delta

🇳🇱 Plompe Toren

Koudekerksche Inlaag, Oosterschelde, Zeeland, Netherlands

You park beside a fifteenth-century church tower standing alone on the dyke — all that is left of the village of Koudekerke, which the sea took four hundred years ago.

Dives here
1
Deepest
9.9 m
Water
salt
First · last
2008
Also known as
Plompetoren

Revision 2 · changed 18 Oct 2026

History
  1. r2 18 Oct 2026 Neutral geo_source; photo size matches the file · Dennis Bakhuis
  2. r1 10 Oct 2026 Imported from the personal log · Dennis Bakhuis

Site data © divelog-sites contributors (ODbL), descriptions and maps CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

1 map

↓5 m↓10 m↓15 m↓20 mRoute · 221 mPlompe TorenTrap↓0 mStenen, oesters, slangsterrenStroming: duik rond de kenteringN20 m
  • Entry / exit
  • Hazard
  • Point of interest
  • Marker
  • Shoreline
  • Depth contour
  • Dive path
  • Other area
  • Depth
Site map · 1 object · 3 paths · max 20 m

Shore dive on the Oosterschelde below the Plompe Toren: the concrete steps down the dike, a band of stones and oyster beds along the slope and the 5/10/15/20 m contours of a steep, tidal slope that continues past 25 m. Dive steps and shoreline from OpenStreetMap; positions and contours are approximate. Strong current: dive around slack water, and move away if fishing boats come close.

Map © divelog-sites contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

The village that is not there

Koudekerke stood on the south coast of Schouwen. In 1468 Lodewijk van Gruuthuse bought the area and built a new church to replace one that had decayed. It did not help: the Scheldt was shifting its course northwards and eating the southern edge of the island.

In 1581 a new inlaagdijk — a fallback dyke, built inland of a coast that is being lost — was run straight through the village. That was the signal to leave, and the villagers did. The church was demolished in 1583. Only the tower was kept.

It was kept for a reason. The Westerschelde was not yet the navigable route it became, so every ship bound for Antwerp came past this coast, and the tower was their seamark. A 23 m brick tower of 1468 outlived the village it was built for by four and a half centuries because it was useful to shipping.

It was restored in 1935, 1962 and 1974, taken over by Natuurmonumenten in 1997, and restored again in 2019–20.

The dive

The site is the Koudekerksche Inlaag below it — the strip of water between the old dyke and the new one — on the Oosterschelde shore. Shallow, silty, tidal, and dived on the slack.

One dive, 7 June 2008, to 9.9 m.

The workbook had this pinned to Sluis in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, 50 km south, until September 2026.

Image: Plompe Toren Koudekerke R02.jpg — Marc Ryckaert, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Photos

Dived here with

Kim

Nearby sites

1 dive at Plompe Toren

  1. 7 Jun 2008 with Kim drift date7 Jun 2008 depth9.9 m time33 min water—

Sources