Since we sold our RIB a few years ago the majority of Croydon BSAC’s diving is done from charter boats on single-day, weekend and sometimes week-long trips. Here are some details of our preferred boats along with come examples of the diving we have done in each area:

Brighton/ Eastbourne

We use two excellent boats from Brighton: Brighton Diver skippered by Paul Dyer and Channel Diver skippered by Steve Johnson. Both boats are catamarans, both have lifts and both have good kitting up benches, they also come armed with proper bogs and nice hot kettles. We have been using these skippers and their boats for many years and in this time have done some fantastic diving, some recommendations:

Brighton

• Ashford
• City of Waterford
• Fortuna
• Moldavia
• Pentryct
• Quail
• Ramsgarth
• TR Thompson

Brighton Diver, Brighton

Eastbourne

• Alaunia
• Argonaut
• Balfour
• Caleb Sprague
• Oceana

Channel Diver, Brighton & Eastbourne

Littlehampton

For our Littlehampton jaunts we use Paul Childs and his boat Voyager, another catamaran that is just as well equipped as the two Brighton boats. There is plenty of excellent diving from Littlehampton, such as:

• Basil
• Shirala
• HMS Northcoates
• Zaanstroom

Weymouth

Weymouth and Portland really is the home of south coast diving, there are at least 8 hard boats running all of which are very well equipped. Unfortunately one or two of the boats we have used in the past have stopped trading, but good alternatives include Graham Knott’s Wey Chieftain, Woody’s RW Too and Ian Taylor’s Skin Deeper. Classic dives in this area include:

• Aeolian Sky
• HMS Landrail
• M2
• Pomeranian
• Salsette
• St Dunstan

Plymouth

Venture, Plymouth

Plymouth is the regular venue for our Easter trips and usually either the May or August bank holiday weekend. For many years now we have been booking Pete Fergus’ excellent hard boat Venture to cater for our diving needs. Pete really looks after his customers providing loads of hot drinks, an excellent lunch and plenty of banter. Plymouth has several excellent dive sites that make the drive down very worthwhile:

• Eddystone Lighthouse
• Hand Deeps
• James Egan Layne
• Maine
• Persia
• Rosehill

So there you go, a few of our favourite diving venues. Links to other dive boats from all around the coast can be found on our website links page.

Paul Brown