Dacorum Sub Aqua Club

Maps

To find out where we meet for dive trips in the sea see the Launch Sites page.

The club meeting before the pool session and the social meeting after the pool session on Thursdays

Is at the Apsley Village Club opposite Sainsbury's between 8 and 11pm

Directions: Follow the London road south bound out of Hemel Hempstead through Apsley and turn into Kents Avenue, immediately turn left behind the block of flats and go through to the car park

If you're a visitor, please contact Barry Perton before coming down : as it's a private club we need to know you're coming to get you signed in.

Our pool session on Thursdays

Is at Hemel Hempstead Leisure Centre between 9 and 10pm

The leisure centre is located off St John's Road, near Kodak House, at Park Road, Hemel Hempstead, HP1 1JS.

Select one or other of these links to see a map of the area.

Directions from M1:  From junction 8 M1, go towards Hemel Hempstead centre, on the  A414 to magic roundabout, follow British Rail sign post to get to Station Road. Keep Kodak House to your right, take second right after Kodak House. Again take the second right and park.

Directions from A41: Come off at Hemel Hempstead, on the A414 to Magic Roundabout, follow British Rail sign post  to get to Station Road, keep Kodak House to your right, take second right after Kodak House. Again take the second right and park.

Stoney Cove

Our main, out of season, open water training site is:

Stoney Cove Dive Shop, Stoney Stanton, Leicestershire,  tel: 01455 273089 

The site has air, shop, food and a pub. Maximum depth around 35m. Reasonable underwater viz. A lot to see underwater.

At weekends it's crowded, and there's a great pressure of people, all around, both on the surface and underwater. Mid-week is great.

It's expensive to enter. There's a long walk from top car park if you arrive late and dry facilities are limited.

Directions: Take the M1 towards Leicester. Come off at Lutterworth, junction 20. Go through the town and head north on the A426.Turn left, near Dunton Basset, on to the B581. Go through Broughton Astley. Turn left onto the B4114, then 50m further on, turn right back on to the B581. Enter Stoney Stanton and turn left at the crossroads. Stoney Cove is 200m on the road towards Sapcote. The journey takes around an hour and three quarters.

Select this link to see a map of the area. (Click on the minus button to zoom out.)

Guildenbugh Water

Another out of season, open water training site is:

DIVE IN, Gildenburgh Water, Eastrea Road, Whittlesey Cambridgeshire,: tel:01733 351288.

The site has air, shop, food with indoor seating, and a bar. Maximum depth around 20m. It's murky and fairly uninteresting underwater although there are fish and some buses, aircraft and boats are linked together with rope guides. 

It has primitive dry facilities that are dirty, damp and unrepaired.

The main reasons for diving here are: it is not very crowded, the walk from the car park is short and there's generally a lot less pressure than at Stoney.

Directions: Take the A1 to Peterborough. Go east on the A605 to Whittlesey. Guildenburgh is 500m east of Whittlesey on the road to March. The journey takes around an hour and three quarters.

Select this link to see a map of the area.  (Click on the minus button to zoom out.)

Calvert

Another open water, boat handling and group training site is:

Great Moor Sailing Club, Grebe Lake, Calvert, Bucks.

No air or food. Maximum depth around 20m. Very murky. Flocks of birds and their left-behinds. It is a disused landfill site.

There is a bricked up railway tunnel at 19m, at the end of the 100m ramp that leads down to the bottom of the lake from the main slip. The tunnel leads to the lake across the road. Opposite the tunnel, to the west, are some brick sheds and rail lines at 19m.

In the centre of the lake, 100m to the west of the club house, the bottom rises to a 6m rocky outcrop where there is a drop off from 6m to 19m.

The depth at the end of the main pontoon drops off to 17m or 20m.

The northeast corner of the lake is landfill.

There is a slip for launching RIBs. There is no diving on Sundays - dingy racing. The Club house has seating and heat, a kettle and hot showers. The club has plans to regenerate the club house.

Call the Commodore of the club to check if it's convenient to dive several weeks before your arrival.

Directions: Take the A41 from Aylesbury to Bicester, Turn right at Kingswood, go past Grendon Underwood and Edgcott. Follow the road between Charndon and Calvert to get to the west lake. There is only one vehicle entrance to Grebe Lake. The journey takes around three quarters of an hour from Hemel.

Select this link to see a map of the area. (Click on the minus button to zoom out.)

Wraysbury

A new open water training site we've tried recently is:

Wraysbury Dive Centre near Egham.

The site has air, a very small shop, food and indoor seating. Maximum depth around 10m but it is being deepened. It's murky and uninteresting with few dry facilities and extremely primitive and limited toilets.

It's also under the Heathrow airport flight path - so it's noisy.

Directions: Wraysbury Dive Centre is a mile or 2 west of Junction 13 M25 to the north of the village on the road between the village and the station. The journey takes around thirty minutes at 8am on a Saturday.

Select this link to see a map of the area. (Click on the minus button to zoom out.)

Portland

Portland is our main diver training site when using the club RIB. We meet and launch the boat from either:

• Castletown

  

  Select this link to see a map of the area.  (Click on the minus button to zoom out.) 

  Directions: M25, M3, M27 (westwards), A31, A35 to Weymouth, follow signs to Portland avoiding Weymouth town centre. Cross the Ferrybridge onto the Isle of Portland. Climb the hill towards Fortuneswell but turn left to Castletown. We normally meet at the 30 space car park outside Breakwater Diving's cafe. The slip can be seen from parts of the car park.

  There is a free slip here but its requires a 4x4 vehicle to retrieve boats at low water. Parking is £5 per day close to the beach or £5 per weekend within the Port walls.

  There are toilets, cafes, pubs, dive shops, chandlers and cheap accommodation at Castletown.

  We don't normally dive from the beach because of the heavy boat traffic but go out into the harbour or the open sean around the isle of Portland, Weymouth Bay or Lyme Bay.

• Ferrybridge

Select this link to see a map of the area.  (Click on the plus button to zoom in.)

Directions: M25, M3, M27 (westwards), A31, A35 to Weymouth, follow signs to Portland avoiding Weymouth town centre. Cross the Ferrybridge and take the first left turn 50m after the bridge. The boatyard is on the south east side, adjacent to the bridge.

This is a launch site only.

There is no air or food. There are unreliable toilets. The reason we use Ferrybridge is: it has a very good slip and you get a tractor to the launch boat as part of the cost (£15) of using the slip. One vehicle gets free parking and the others pay £5 per day.

We dived around here before but the strong currents produce dives that are too exciting.

Ferrybridge and Castletown are 2 miles apart, so be sure you know which is the meeting place.

If you are taking the club boat through Portland Harbour you must pay harbour dues by buying a ticket at the chandlers at Castletown or the boatyard office at Ferrybridge. It's normally £3 per day per boat. If you want to dive inside the harbour's breakwater and just outside some parts of the breakwater, you must buy a permit from the same places. It's normally £6 per day per boat.

Swanage Pier

Swanage Pier has been used by many clubs to introduce huge numbers of new divers to diving in the sea.

The maximum depth is 5m, viz is rarely more than 3m and low tide can be a problem because divers have to clamber over rocks near the entry steps. You can see some marine life under the pier but not as much as you would expect from a similar site that received no diving visitors : the large numbers of divers have kicked and frightened much of it away. Watch out for big dive boats, RIBs, other pleasure craft and anglers on the pier. If you dive away from the pier use an SMB and hug the sea bed.

It's fairly cheap to enter and park on the pier. You must arrive early in summer otherwise the on-pier parking will be full and you will have to park 100m from the pier in a separate car park. This means carrying and guarding your equipment for the rest of the day. There are toilets and a small snack shop with a local history exhinition.

There is a basic dive shop with air. It's possible to launch a RIB from the slip 100m to the east beside the RNLI boat house.

Select this link to see a map of the area. (Click on the plus button to zoom in.)