The plasma induced during underwater pulsed laser ablation of graphite is studied both experimentally and theoretically. The results of the experiment show that the maximum plasma temperature of 25000 K is reached 20 ns from the beginning of the laser pulse and decreases to 6500 K after 1000 ns. The observed OH absorption band shows that the plasma plume is surrounded by the thin layer of dissociated water vapour at a temperature around 5500 K. The hydrodynamic model applied shows similar maximum plasma temperature at delay times between 14 ns and 30 ns. The calculations show also that already at 14th ns, the plasma electron density reaches 0.97.10(27)m(-3), which is the critical density for 1064 nm radiation. At the same time the plasma pressure is 2 GPa, which is consisted with earlier measurements of the peak pressure exerted on a target in similar conditions. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.