Entrance to Porthkerris beach
Cornwall is the home to incredible dive locations which is backed up by its frequent appearance in scuba magazines and pub chats with other divers. I had to see this for myself and signed up for the iDive trip to Porthkerris organised by Joe.
We stayed at Sea Acres Caravan Park and I was welcomed with a fresh and hearty vegetable pasta that boasted the culinary talent of my caravan buddies (something I couldn’t turn down after 10 hours on the road!). The location of stay was comfortable, and a good choice given it was a 20 minute drive to the dive site and had plenty of outdoor space for parking and drying our equipment.
I was not disappointed by the diving off the beach of Porthkerris. I perceived the waters of Cornwall as having good visibility of up to 10 meters, reduced to around 5 meters on some dives.
Jewel Anemones
We did a good mix of reef and wreck dives with all dive sites hosting lots of life. The creatures that stood out to me were the conger eels, blennys, angler fish, blue lobsters, spider crabs, crayfish, fan coral, multi-coloured jewel anemones and flying scallops.
Jewel Anemones
Diving in Cornwall was different to my previous dives, majority of which have been abroad. One obvious difference was the water temperature which ranged between 14’c – 16’c. I donned a 7mm wetsuit which was comfortable for the first 20 minutes of the dive but I noticed the cold after that. However, I felt my body got accustomed to the cold as the days went by and I would encourage anyone with a good wetsuit/semi-dry to not let water temperature be a limiting factor for attending this trip in the future!
Diving off the RIB also felt a little congested when lugging around heavy equipment on the first day, on a moving boat while avoiding literally stepping on other people’s toes. But I did notice I got into a rhythm with moving the equipment around on the boat and getting ready for the dives, which made the diving more enjoyable too. It was very clear from the start that everyone on the trip were ‘on the same boat’ and that getting divers into the water wouldn’t be possible without everyone’s keenness to support the divers getting ready.
The trip to Cornwall is a lot of fun and something I’d like to take part in again next year (hopefully with my drysuit training completed!). The diving is very fulfilling, there are lots of social and tasty meals in the evening, and great scenery all around. Even the mishaps of the trip, such as my DSMB reel breaking, couldn’t put a dampner on the trip!”
Cheers
Vivek
