Pembrokeshire
At the Southwest corner of Wales, Pembrokeshire is the bit of land that separates the Bristol Channel from the Irish Sea; as the tide changes massive amounts of water storm past the end of Pembrokeshire leading to strong currents and prolific marine life. Find the right spot and dive at slack water and you can be sure of a good life dive. With major ports at Fishguard and in Milford Haven and lots of traffic between the Bristol Channel and Irish Sea there have also been plenty of ships having the odd mishap and bumping into the rocks.
Pembrokeshire has also seen its fair share of wartime wrecks. During the First World War, U-boats would lie in wait in the shipping lanes just outside the harbours and pick off targets with torpedoes. During the Second World War, aerial mines were dropped in the harbours to sink ships at random.
The diving gem of Pembrokeshire is without doubt the Skomer Marine Nature Reserve, an area of water and coastline surrounding Skomer Island and the nearby parts of the mainland. The MNR boasts a terrific variety of marine habitats, ranging from current swept walls, channels and pinnacles to sheltered bays.
Favourite dives of mine in the reserve are the Garland Stone reef at the north-west corner of Skomer and Tusker Rock and Wooltack Point at the north end of Jack Sound.
The Garland Stone is an enormous rock at the north-west corner of Skomer. It is easy enough to spot, but that is not quite where the dive site is. About 20 metres before the Garland Stone on the north side are a few shallow rocks that just about break the surface at low water slack, and the reef runs north from here.
It is ridge of rock rising vertically on both the east and west sides to 10 to 15 metres from a 35 to 40 metre seabed. Any time but 2.5 hours after low water Milford Haven the current piles over the reef. If you are there at the wrong time it is easy to see it.
I like to drop in just north of the rocks, then swim over the shallow reef to the north-east or north-west until I hit the wall, follow the wall round to the other side, then back across the top of the reef to return to the starting point. As an added bonus there is a nice little boulder cave in a narrow gully at about 25 metres on the west side of the reef.
Also on the north side of Skomer is the wreck of the Lucy, a 450-ton coaster wrecked in 1967.
If sea conditions are good, 7 miles offshore from the west of Skomer lies Grassholm, a flat hump of rock that you can smell as you approach from downwind due to the massive seabird colonies on it. Another 7 miles brings you to the Smalls, with the Hats and Barrels reefs in between.
Although there are a number of wrecks here, these rocks and reefs are better considered life dives, with the added bonus of seals who may come and visit during the dive.
Another location that can be good for seals is Stack Rocks, a few miles back into St Brides bay. The south side is the best place to dive for pretty marine life.
On the next headland north is St Davids, Britain's smallest city. St Davids' head has its own collection of rocks and islands, Ramsey Island being the biggest and most of the rest being generically referred to as The Bishops and Clerks.
On one trip we took an afternoon off to visit the St Davids agricultural fair, only to be totally humiliated when our scratch team of divers lost the tug-of-war to the local pub women's team. The winners were the young farmers club - it was their rope.
The current in Ramsey Sound is just as strong as that in Jack Sound, but a little less confused. The half-intact remains of the steamship Count d'Aspremont lie upside down in 28 metres and can be dived at slack water.
Being in to scoring lighthouses, I made a special effort to dive the South Bishop lighthouse a few years ago. We made two dives, one to the north-east of the lighthouse and one to the south. Considering the strong currents and whirlpools, the north-east side was surprisingly silty. I suspect it collected the silt scoured from everywhere else because the south side was a completely different dive. None of the spectacular walls as found round Skomer, but a shelving rocky reef with a good selection of all the usual reef life.
If you are looking for something technical, there are a number of wrecks to the south of Skokholm island in 55 to 65 metres or so, all nicely lined up on the route to Milford Haven and picked off by torpedo during the First World War.
After such a deep dive, the wreck of the Bury in St Paul's Bay on the south side of Skokholm island is nice and shallow and out of the tide. There are also shallow wrecks in against the cliffs all along the southern coastline of Pembrokershire. Most are well broken, but can still be worth a dive.
Tight in against Hooper's point lies the remains of the cable ship Faraday, bombed during the Second World War, set on fire, then broken against the cliffs. Lying in against St Anne's Head at the entrance to Milford Haven is the Adamantios J Pithis, a well broken and dispersed Greek steamship that hit the rocks in 1940. You have to be in really close to the cliffs in just 6 to 8 metres to find the intact boilers and the steam engine.
Restrictions placed by the Army firing range limits access to much of the coastline between Milford Haven and Tenby. However, when the range schedule permits there is some good shallow diving, with wrecks including the flat but not dispersed remains of the steamship Nicolaou Virginia, a very pleasant dive in usually excellent visibility and less than 10 metres deep.
If weather keeps you away from the open sea there are plenty of sheltered sites actually in Milford Haven. Most visitors to the area dive the wreck of the Dakotian at some time. Other equally good and less well known wrecks in the area include the wreck of the cable ship Behar, the Thor, and an intact but upside down landing craft covered in plumose anemones. The Behar is particularly easy to find, lying about half way between a channel buoy with the name printed on it and Great Castle Head.
UBUC has been running a 2-week trip to Pembrokeshire every year for longer than I have been diving. Each time is a chance to say hello to some regular sites as if they were old friends, introducing them to that year's crop of new divers. At the same time we are still finding new places to dive, some of them genuinely new, and others by swapping notes with local divers.
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