Dive Venues
The following venues are Croydon BSAC's
usual haunts. The visibility in these areas varies from less than 1m to
10m or more depending on the time of year, but what is guaranteed is a
day out on a boat and a good laugh.
~ Brighton
Only an 1 hour drive form London, Brighton has a fleet of dive
boats that are berthed at the western end of the
marina. We book day
dives throughout the year from Steve Johnson's catamaran,
Channel Diver,
and Brighton
Diver II, skippered by Paul Dyer.
Dives are booked for all levels of diver from trainee to experienced and
can include classics such as the
City of Waterford, the
TR Thompson and the
Ashford.
~ Eastbourne
At the eastern end of the Channel, just the other side of Beachy
Head, Eastbourne is a rather more sedate venue than Brighton. The
marina
has, however, grown substantially over the years and provides an ideal
base for Channel
Diver
when Steve relocates for the summer. Wrecks here are generally less
dived than those available out of Brighton and artefacts are still to be
found. Good dives include the
Alaunia, the
Oceana, the
Argonaut and the
Caleb Sprague (from which a Croydon diver
recovered the bell in 2000).
~ Falmouth
Much further a field is the beautiful Cornish town of Falmouth. Generally
used as a venue for 3-day bank holiday breaks, Falmouth provides some
excellent scenic diving in relatively shallow depths. Diving from
Under Pressure, Steve McEwan's luxurious hard boat (gin palace!!) or
Cornish
Pussy, Gary Fox's catamaran,
highlights include the
Manacles,
the Mohegan, the
Hera,
the
Volnay and the
NG
Peterson.
~ Littlehampton
Another single-day venue, Littlehampton provides some wonderful
shallow wreck dives like the
Gascony,
HMS Northcotes the
Basil and the
Zaanstroom as well as one of the finest deeper dives in the Channel
- the
Moldavia.
Paul Childs is a highly experienced skipper and his boat Voyager is a
large catamaran that is the ideal dive platform.
~ Plymouth
Plymouth's Mount Batten
Centre is the traditional venue for Croydon BSAC 23's first trip of
the year at Easter. There is a huge amount of both scenic and wreck
diving available to us here with particular highlights being the
James Egan Layne,
the Scylla,
the Persia,
Hand Deeps, the
Eddystone reef, the
Rosehill and the
Elk. We use Pete
Fergus' excellent hard boat Venture for our Plymouth jollies, where
trainees are pampered and experienced divers abused.
~ Weymouth
The capital of south coast diving, Weymouth boasts a fleet of some 10 or
more hard boats offering diving for all levels in all depths. Portland
Harbour provides sheltered diving to a max of 20m on wrecks such as the
Countess of Erne
and the
Hood, whilst outside the harbour
off Portland Bill or round into Lyme Bay truly classic wreck dives such
as the
M2,
Aeolian Sky, the
Pommeranian, the
St Dunstan, and the
Salsette can
be found. Various Weymouth boats are used, go to the
links section for more
information.
In the past few years we have also
visited the Farne Islands, the Scilly Isles, the
Channel Islands, Scapa Flow, the
Sound of Mull, the Red Sea and
the Normandy coast.
For trip reports from some of our
outings please have a look at the
gallery pages and the club's magazine,
The Muddy Puddle.
