Why should warm water divers consider the UK?

[dbulmer]

Why should warm water divers consider UK diving?

What is there to see? Crap vis, wrecks at 40 metres and deeper?
What 'cute' fishes are there?

Why go to the expense of getting kit in cold water?

PS this is a deliberately provocative question and equally provocative replies are welcome!

 

[docmartin]

aren't basking sharks cute?

 

[mwilding]

Well, Brittannia rules the waves. So, in order to see her, you have to dive her waters...

 

[Wreckie]

david........ whyIoutghta!!!!! grrrrr rant etc

K, Wrecks the uk has 100,000 wrecks around its coast (at least). Ranging from mega deep techie type stuff, to wrecks breaking the surface (the inner and outer leese in northern ireland as an example). Wrecks = fish, including congas (which i recon are cute in an ugly kinda way).

The kit is the same as that used in the hot places except for the dry suit, fly to austrailia to do the barrier reef and youve spent the equivelent of a good suit on the flights alone, and you get a weeks diving, dive the UK and you have 12 months of diving (train in the winter, use the training when its nice).

Vis is great, just depends where you go to scapa, weighmouth, oban

Rant rave, shout scream etc....

Good enough david?

Mike

 

[Adrian Kelland]

Why should warm water divers consider UK diving?

What is there to see? Crap vis, wrecks at 40 metres and deeper?
What 'cute' fishes are there?

Why go to the expense of getting kit in cold water?

PS this is a deliberately provocative question and equally provocative replies are welcome!

'Crap' vis- depends on what you are looking at, why spend your dive looking at whats over there and rushing over to it, when you could be looking at what's in front of your nose and not rushing. And if you can handle UK vis, you won't find it a problem in warm crap vis - it exists.

Wrecks at 40m and above. Bretagne 26m James Egan Jayne 24m Bay Gitano 22m Galecia 18m Aolian Skye 32m (all south coast) for a start.

'Cute' fish - any that cooks up well. Play with wrasse and dog fish. John dory and ling. The occaisional trigger fish. You WON'T find Nemo.

The expense, a dry suit I assume. Don't have to cost much. The are plenty of places called warm where a drysuit is useful. The Red Sea around now for instance, water is warm enough, but the wind is something else. Who want's to put a wet wetsuit on in those conditions. In the Gulf of Suez water temps were 22degC in May, and I saw a lot of shivering. Then theres places like Malta and Canaries where a drysuit can make the difference for winter diving. So you might need a bit more lead.

Unless you are rich, then you won't be doing a lot of warm water diving if based in the UK. 2-3 weeks max? not very much, and it won't keep you skills up to scratch.

Enough for now?

Adrian

 

[the_dumper]

'Cute' fish - any that cooks up well.
Adrian

:biggrin2:

 

[chrisch]

Don't encourage them over here - they stir up the silt and book all the boats on the nice weekends. (Just back from South of France - 3m viz, no fish, 14C water).

Chris

 

[Adrian Kelland]

Don't encourage them over here
Chris

Good point Chris, lets keep the secret to ourselves

Adrian

 

[RSoper]

Good question, sometimes i do wonder why we bother, and i live not too far away from what many UK divers would consider "good UK dive sites" (St Abbs one hour away, sound of Mull 2.5 hours away.)

I quite enjoy the challenges that UK diving has to offer, and in the summer it can be quite pleasant, but in the winter it becomes more like an SAS survival course than "fun." I was diving at St Abbs yesterday, and it was bl@@dy freezing, very little in the way of life (not one fish to be seen,) and suiting up was an endurance session in itself with the air temp.

I have heard people "raving" about the great wrecks we have, and i would agree in part, but the problem is that the vis more often than not is poor, meaning you don't actually see very much at all (Scapa Flow for example Kromp Printz Willaim, massive ship and 3m vis.)

Given the choice, i would rather have diving on my door step where i do not sit in the car with my girlfriend (buddy,) prior to a dive, in February, when it is p!ssing with rain outside and freezing, trying to find a reason to get in the water.

My ideal would be, being able to get into the water in a wetsuit on, which does not require 12kg of weight, slipping into warm water with good vis and loads to see, and blue sea (i think i may be dreaming though.)

Having said all this, when the diving is good in the UK, and the visibility is good, i would not want to be anywhere else, it can be (on rare occassions,) some of the best diving in the world.

My final ten cents worth, because of the crud diving conditions we are subjected to, i would argue we possibly produce some of the most competant divers in the world, which can't be a bad thing.

 

[dbulmer]

First off, all thank you all for replying.

Wreckie, Adrian
How could a beautiful coral formation possibly compare to a dark battered piece of metal? It's a bit like comparing Anne Widdecombe to Kylie Minogue! Tut, tut good try though!!! The kits the same apart from the drysuit - have you not forgotten coldwater regs, undersuit, thermals, spools/reels, SMBs and DSMBS and ... torches ?add that into the equation and the trip to the GBR sounds enticing from a financial point of view - still doing the conger could be interesting !

Adrian, skills development is a damn good reason to dive cold though. One thing I have noticed on my tropical dives is that people do appear at least to be more complacent - cold water divers seem a lot more safety conscious in my limited experience to date.

Chrisch,
Aha - a conspiracy to stop the numpties ! Well sir, who else would you moan about if us numties were not there ? - ah got it ! those men in black - the dir goons! Ah, these dir types know nothing - they just seem to be getting in the way of incompetence - damn shame as it allows us numpties to go forth and multiply in ever increasing numbers I might add to subsidise the boats

RSoper,
SAS Survival course - thought diving was supposed to be fun?

To everyone, thanks again for the replies. I have every intention of trying UK diving but I do have a lot of training in front of me ie Stoney Cove visits etc and my main motivation in doing UK diving is to ... make the tropical diving more enjoyable the couple of times a year I can do it.