The Isle of Man, nestled in the heart of the Irish Sea between England and Ireland, is a hidden gem for divers seeking adventure, rich marine life, and dramatic underwater landscapes. Renowned for its clear waters, fascinating wrecks, and vibrant wildlife, the island offers a unique diving experience for enthusiasts of all levels.
I’ve always wanted to dive around the Isle of Man but somehow, I never managed to get there, so in 2026, I was determined to do it. After spending a little time googling, I found two potential dive operators, but only one had availability, so easy choice really. Isle of Man Diving Charters is a local family business that has over 20 years, built a nice little business. Their house doubles as the diving base, the boat is moored at the end of the jetty opposite, if tide allows; and they have a separate house that is used exclusively for the diving guests as a B&B. It proved to work well, everything is so convenient, and the owner/skippers, father and son team, Mike and Tom, seamlessly get it done, ferrying you to the best sites they can, weather permitting, of course.
In the month before we left for IOM, they had reported calm sunny days with nearly daily sightings of basking sharks. My first basking shark, YES, everyone was crossing their fingers in anticipation, but I don’t seem to be very lucky with weather this year, where everyone else is sunbathing in 30+ degrees and no wind, I get my diving gear out of the garage, and the weather turns bad.
On Monday 7 August we boarded the ferry in Liverpool; it was calm, in the IOM they sighted four basking sharks. Guess how many we saw in the next four days? Zero.
On Wednesday 9 August a force 8 gale was forecast, it’s the middle of the summer for goodness sake.
Thanks to skipper Tom, we still managed to get eight great dives over the four days, dodging the wind. That’s the beauty of island diving there’s somewhere to dive most of the time. As we knew the gale was coming in on Wednesday, we squeezed in three dives the first day, just in case
Dive 1. MV Citrine, a small ship of 650 tons sunk in 1931, now rests, very broken in 15m. There was lots of life, Cat sharks (aka dogfish) and breeding sea hares (marine snails) were all over the engine block and surrounding area.
Dive 2. Amulty, a reef near the Calf of Man, in about 22m, it’s quite close to the rocks on the shore, where there’s a small seal colony, we initially stayed shallow in 3-4m and were lucky to see a few seals underwater, but they are quite shy here, so we moved deeper to enjoy the rest of the reef in 22m
Dive 3. Bay Fine, a small reef in about 20m, an enjoyable back up dive, but still a good dive.
It had been very windy overnight, but there was a weather window in the morning which allowed us to get one single dive done, and what a cracker it was.
Dive 4. Kronie Halbey is a spectacular reef off the Calf of Man in 22m, we had a bumpy ride getting there, but fortunately the boat has an enclosed wheelhouse with ten cushioned bucket style seats, so it was a pretty comfortable riding over the large swells, when we arrived on site there were still some swells but I still considered it safe to dive, and everyone was keen to go. What a great dive, lots of life, all kinds of anemones, cat sharks, nudibranchs, and pretty good viz at probably 10m
Having the afternoon off, gave us the opportunity to see some more of the island, and we were kindly ferried around by Alex, and Andy, big thanks to them. We had lunch at the Victory Café, saw some of the TT race circuit nearby, the Laxey water wheel and the historical Victorian and Edwardian Electric Trams on the Manx Electric railway, which are still in use today.
The weather didn’t turn out as bad as we originally thought but it certainly left some swells behind, and as there was some more bad news to come, we pushed to do another 3 dives on this day too.
Dive 5. Burroo (pronounced burrah), wow, what a dive, rated as one of the best scenic dive’s in the UK, at a max of 24m, it consists of deep gullies, steep vertical cliffs, boulder fields, all covered in soft corals and anemones, with loads of fish, nudibranchs, and so much more, a great dive, definitely worth a revisit
Dive 6 Sugarloaf Caves 12m, another really enjoyable dive, this is right up against the cliffs, where the cliff face has split off, creating a sort of sea stack, the dive starts in a sea cave caused by wave action and you think it doesn’t go in very far, but it just keeps going, if you keep following the wall of the cave, it leads you back outside, you then follow the cliff face and go through the gap between the stack and the cliff face, its not deep and there’s always a clear surface, so you can surface if need be, definitely one for the log book.
Dive 7. Creg-y-Jaghee, this dive follows the boulder line at the bottom of a cliff face, there are huge boulders, that create small caves with lots of nooks and crannies to explore, when you get to the bottom of the boulder line, there’s white sand, that reflects the light, a good dive to finish the day as you could pick your depth and make it a multilevel dive following your NDL limit
The weather seemed pretty good today, a lot calmer, and a bonus, a juvenile Sunfish on the surface enroute to the dive, that’s ticked another one off the list.
Dive 8. Burroo. It had to done, everyone voted for diving this one again, and it didn’t disappoint, I think you could do this dive multiple times and have a different dive each time, wonderful.
Oh, and if you wondered where all the Cat Sharks are, they are on holiday in the Isle of Man
My thanks to Alex Rhys for the Macro shots and me for the easy GoPro ones
Obviously, the IOM is well known for the brilliant TT race, but I think the diving is fantastic too, varied, good visibility, with plenty of fauna and flora underwater, friendly locals, it’s all you need for a great few days and we had that with Isle of Man diving Charters. Everyone was on open circuit, even me, we all dived on air, not nitrox, all dives were shallower than 25 metres and we were all diving up to 50 mins on each dive, even on the 3 dive days, that’s 400 mins underwater, excluding travel costs, beer and food, it only cost £1.23 a minute underwater.
I’m going again next year, those basking sharks will be there and so will Dacorum Scuba.
