dbulmer
Contributor
Jersey,
We went there at about 4pm. We took advice from a local before we did the dive. His suggestion was to dive it on a day when there was no wind. The reason I asked a local (apart from common sense) was that my buddy and I had visited the site 3 days earlier when it was windy. What looked tricky was the dive entry/exit and specifically the exit. We looked at the water and saw a current running at 45 degrees from the sea to the beach and we didn't fancy getting battered getting out particularly as my buddy had some expensive camera gear with him.
After we got back from our scouting trip I asked a local diver and he told us to go when there was no wind. A couple of days later we did just that. You have to swim out on the surface to about 300 yards and then descend to about 20-25 feet and then you see some fairly large sea fans - As you may be aware sea fans thrive in areas where there is movement of water so it pays to expect some current.
(BTW:the first 200 yards were very shallow with featureless rock but with flat seas it was very easy to make your way into the water but we had good conditions and it was easy to dunk your head in the waterfrom the surface to see if there was anything interesting.)
Our plan was to swim to the left of the lighthouse as we were expecting a bit of current.
We did that but to our surprise there was very little current (I experienced more current on the buddy dive reef than on this dive - that's how lucky we were
)
We swam for about 20 mins to about 50/60 feet and then swam back with the current for about 20 mins and then spent the last 15 mins meandering to the shore.
I'd agree with your buddy though - on a bad day it's not a dive I'd do without some surface support. We saw various fish (I'm a wreckie at heart though I have spent many years in denial the HH turned me into a wreckie!) but we saw quite a few durgon and a small shoal of tuna. The main reason I enjoyed the site was the coral formations which were more varied than a lot of the other sites.
It's a site worth doing but only in good conditions.
We went there at about 4pm. We took advice from a local before we did the dive. His suggestion was to dive it on a day when there was no wind. The reason I asked a local (apart from common sense) was that my buddy and I had visited the site 3 days earlier when it was windy. What looked tricky was the dive entry/exit and specifically the exit. We looked at the water and saw a current running at 45 degrees from the sea to the beach and we didn't fancy getting battered getting out particularly as my buddy had some expensive camera gear with him.
After we got back from our scouting trip I asked a local diver and he told us to go when there was no wind. A couple of days later we did just that. You have to swim out on the surface to about 300 yards and then descend to about 20-25 feet and then you see some fairly large sea fans - As you may be aware sea fans thrive in areas where there is movement of water so it pays to expect some current.
(BTW:the first 200 yards were very shallow with featureless rock but with flat seas it was very easy to make your way into the water but we had good conditions and it was easy to dunk your head in the waterfrom the surface to see if there was anything interesting.)
Our plan was to swim to the left of the lighthouse as we were expecting a bit of current.
We did that but to our surprise there was very little current (I experienced more current on the buddy dive reef than on this dive - that's how lucky we were
)We swam for about 20 mins to about 50/60 feet and then swam back with the current for about 20 mins and then spent the last 15 mins meandering to the shore.
I'd agree with your buddy though - on a bad day it's not a dive I'd do without some surface support. We saw various fish (I'm a wreckie at heart though I have spent many years in denial
the HH turned me into a wreckie!) but we saw quite a few durgon and a small shoal of tuna. The main reason I enjoyed the site was the coral formations which were more varied than a lot of the other sites.It's a site worth doing but only in good conditions.
