Dacorum Sub Aqua Club

Shore diving at Chesil Beach

If you have not been shore diving before, the snaps on this page will give you some idea of what it's like.

Chesil beach is a 15 or 20 mile long, pebble beach on the English Channel in Dorset. 

There is plenty of unusual underwater life to see around Chesil Cove, where the beach meets the Isle of Portland: Cuttle fish, John Dory and Pipe fish are common. The pipe fish often play dead when in danger, so you are able to handle them.

This site could not be more different to Weasel Lock, one of our other good shore dive sites.

You can enlarge an image by double clicking on it.

Its summer, its early in the morning, everyone has just done a 3 hour drive from home, carrying all their equipment down the steep beach.

The first thing is to get down to the water's edge with all your equipment.

Then put it all on.

The buddy check.

Reversing into the water is a good way to enter the water with when you have fins on.

Phew, they're in!

Then the dive takes place. With depths of 13 to 15m, its possible to do a 60+ minute dive. As there is boat traffic, cautious divers take Surface Marker Buoys (SMBs) to warn boats away.

Towards the end of the dive, the divers try to arrange it so they arrive back close to where they went in - so they won't have to carry their dive gear too far back to the rest of the group.

The next problem is getting out. Even on a calm day, a wave has a powerful effect on a fully laden diver.

The best way is to fin hard for the shallow water and then crawl fast on your hand and knees up the beach until you're out of the waves.

Once you stand your problems begin. The pebbles of the beach shift with each step. So two steps up result in only one step of real progress.

Then stumble 20 or 30 yard uphill back to the rest of the group.

Some help taking off the heavy stuff is always appreciated, specially after climbing the beach.

The dive marshal collects the diver's details after the dive and makes sure every one has returned and is safe and healthy.

Between dives, people check the decompression tables to see what they can do on the next dive.

Generally, we'll do two dives in a day. When diving finishes, you carry all your equipment back to the top of the beach - not an easy job, load it the car and start the dive home. Often we'll stop at a pub along the way for something to eat and drink.

Photos: Howard Sones