diving in the UK- give it a go!!! (Diving in UK in general)

Member Name: divegal

Product:	Diving in UK in general
Date:	04/11/08 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: wrecks,reefs, drifts-something for all

Disadvantages: colder water

Diving in the Uk

Ok so you have been on holiday somewhere nice and warm and maybe did a PADI open water or advanced course and now you are back at home thinking 'Can I dive in the UK?'. Do I want to dive in the UK? Is there anything to actually see? The answer is a great big YES!!!!

I have been diving for a good few years now both in the UK and in much warmer places. I would be silly if I said that I enjoyed diving in colder UK waters to say diving in Egypt but it can be just as exciting and its just a different kind of diving!!!

Diving in the UK requires different kit though. I would never entertain diving here without a dry suit but some of the more hardy types wear a thick wet suit in the summer months! Obviously you would have to have some instruction to dive with a dry suit as it's not quite the same as a wet suit. You can do this through your club if you have one and I think PADI also do a dry suit speciality course. You would also need some other bits of kit which your course should make you aware of.

Once you have tried a dry suit there are some places which rent them out but usually you buy one. Like anything you can pay what you want for these but start from £300 upwards but see if there is someone who dives in the UK who is a similar build to you and see if you can borrow it for the weekend!! I got one off Ebay but if you don't know about dry suits ask someone who does or you may be sold a useless thing!

I love diving in the UK. Ok so its fairly cold and I have been diving inland in winter at 3 degrees and believe me it was cold!! But its also a lot of fun and there is loads to see.

Last September (2007) I was in Cornwall at 40m doing my deep dive course and had my new little camera with me and the photos were fantastic.( not blowing my own trumpet here by the way. It was just luck!) There is so much colour there that people at work just didn't believe that they were taken in the UK. Lovely huge pink sea fans if you know where to look, loads of starfish, and cute little crabs and I even took a lovely photo of a cuttlefish trying to get a little shut eye without my strobe in its face!!

I have dived in Pembrokeshire in Wales loads of times and I love it there. The sea beds there have a lovely amethyst colour to them and its just star fish heaven. Seemingly millions of them all different shapes and sizes. Along with the dinner plate sized spider crabs, lobster and edible crabs. All this and the much smaller items too such as the odd nudibranc and small corals.

On one dive in Wales I was also kissed underwater by a playful little seal!! That was magical!

In Wales and Cornwall too there are also loads of wrecks for you to have a mooch about. Some of these are well within easy reach of the surface while others are sort of 35 metres and deeper. All the wrecks have plenty of life on them usually dead mans fingers, cup corals and things like that. A lot of the wrecks are still fairly intact but some would be hard placed to say it was a wreck unless you had been told! There is nothing like going into a wreck that has lain at the bottom of the sea for years and years and there are plenty in UK waters to choose from.

There are even wrecks sunk specifically to make an artificial reef like HMS Scylla , a 113 metre wreck placed just down by Plymouth in 2004 which already has loads of life on it already with wrasse, bib and pollack.


If like me you lives 2 and a half hours away from the nearest coast there is also a number of inland sites which I dive all year round even in the winter and this year we have a new year days dive planned. Don't be put off by others poo-poohing inland sites. They serve a valuable purpose. It gets you used to dry suit diving in a fairly safe environment and you can try out all your new bits of shiny kit, reels, smb etc before that trip to the coast. I meet up with my dive buddies at least once a month in Inland sites all through the year . We have great fun meeting up, diving, getting cold, diving again and going for a bite to eat and generally having a laugh.

Summary: Dont knock it till you have tried it-I love it