We were joined by members of Liverpool University Sub Aqua Club, for a total of 9, for an incredible weekend of shore diving in Pembrokeshire, South Wales.
Day 1
As it turns out, it’s a long drive to Pembrokeshire… 🥴
Everyone arrived in one piece (except for one instructor’s drysuit) at the first site of the weekend, Stackpole Quay, by 1pm on the Friday. Following a site assessment, we decided on diving the left side of the bay with what seemed to be quite a few gullies and interesting rock formations.
The visibility on this site was 5 to 6 metres. We spotted some marine life and it was a good chance to check everyone’s weighting and that kit was fully functional. Alex from Liverpool managed to get a Sports Diver lesson completed, where he used an SMB (surface marker buoy) for the duration of the dive. We ended up only doing a single dive at this site – the planned night dive didn’t happen because everyone collapsed from exhaustion at the sight of the accommodation.
Day 2
After an early morning fill run we headed to Martin’s Haven about 25 minutes away from the bunkhouse. We ended up deviating from the plan and doing 2 dives on this site due to the incredible amount of wildlife and exceptional visibility.
We managed to find a depth of 20m for almost everyone however we were assured by the local divers that you can easily hit 30m if you look for it. This site is quite exposed so it was important we dived it on slack (period of time around high or low tide with minimal currents and water movement), meaning we had a nice long surface interval between our two dives.
Martin’s Haven is in a marine conservation area and the amount of life there was incredible. We saw too many dogfish to count, lots of huge scallops and a number of lobsters, hidden among the beds of seaweed reaching a metre or two tall. Unfortunately for the seafood lovers on the trip, we were unable to collect any scallops – a very steep fine (£50,000 😱) is in place for anyone caught taking any wildlife.
Day 3
On the final day we headed to St Brides Haven, a 15 minute drive from our accommodation. It turned out to be flat calm and offered amazing visibility – we could see the bottom from one side to the other from the surface.
This site was teeming with life – huge crabs snacking on jellyfish, schools of fish, lots of large pike and fields of jellyfish all over a reef. We also saw a few nudibranchs! The topology of the site included many different levels of reef on the rocky outcrops, including some swim throughs and many hiding spots for marine life. Some of our divers described St Brides Haven as the best shore dive they’ve ever done!
We only did one dive here because we wanted to get home at a reasonable time (and to watch the final game of the Euros), however this was quite a shallow site with a maximum depth of around 10m so everyone completed a dive of over an hour.
Everyone had a great time and we got some exciting dives in. The trip cost for most people came to about £100 including fuel, even cheaper than expected. Our accommodation was affordable and had good facilities, including somewhere to rinse our kit and a barbecue which we made use of on Saturday for a very nice evening. We did have a few mishaps with the fire though… never trust a sidemount diver to start a BBQ.
Join us on our next shore diving trip! You can gain diving experience and do some lessons towards your next qualification, and beyond that, we always have a great time together!
Written by Antoni Zyla, Edited by Teodora Varga
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