Aylesbury Green Park Sub-Aqua Club Aylesbury Green Park Sub-Aqua Club British Sub-Aqua Club

Isle of Man trip - June 2016

Nudibranch
Candy Striped flat worm
Seal playing with a diver
Seal playing with a diver
Jellyfish - non stinging variety

This was a new dive location for our club, the only disadvantage being that due to the popularity of "Isle of Man Diving Holidays" we had to book, and pay a deposit nine months in advance. Included amongst our ten divers were two members from Chesham Club, our first contact with this local club.

Organising the trip was complicated by transport to the Isle of Man, there is a choice of the Isle of Man Ferry or flying, to keep costs down most of the kit was transported in the van, seven of us and the kit travelled in two vehicles, the remainder made their own arrangements. The dive centre supplied self-catering accommodation with breakfast ingredients supplied and the dive centre itself was situated very close to the jetty.

The diving was superb, the best visibility and quantity of marine life that we have seen in British waters for years! This was in spite of the weather being mainly overcast, wet and breezy. The advantage of an island is that there is almost always somewhere sheltered to dive and this was definitely the case on this trip.

The dives were mainly scenic, although we did manage one wreck, however by the end of our trip our self confessed "wreckies" from Chesham declared that for this quality of diving they could easily be converted to scenic.

Highlights of the trip included rock faces covered in many coloured anemones, corals, sponges and every life form that you could imagine. Also found in abundance were fish, crabs, lobsters and other creatures. The cuckoo wrasse, particularly the brilliantly coloured males were very amusing as they faced up to us to defend their territory. Seals of course are always entertaining and they lived up to their reputation, playing "peek a boo" on the wreck dive and playing with out fins amongst the kelp.

One form of sea life was not so welcome, jellyfish were quite a common sight and one of our team had to go to the local hospital for treatment for a bad reaction to their sting, he was unfortunate because his buddy was also stung with minor discomfort.

I would definitely recommend another trip to the Isle of Man.