Why duo-divers, well why not?
Why this web-site, well I thought a while ago, how things have changed in the last……..too many years, but some things haven’t like the lack of accurate information on interesting dive sites.
Small changes like prescription masks, BCD’s, bigger things like dive computers, look at these shots from Cyprus back in ’82 then Egypt in ’11 and work out how much has changed yourselves and mostly for the better.
I remember the first re-breather I saw, it was a modified bag of bits used by the regional mine rescue team and the user wasn’t keen on trying it in 12 ft of water at Bishop Auckland swimming pool! Now the ubiquitous ‘Yellow Box of Death’ can be seen most weekends, oh and yes I am a user, but I’m not a total convert to closed circuit technology.
Back to the ‘why’, there are a huge amount of good, lets face it bloody good, shallow shore and boat dives around the UK and whilst information about them is not hidden away it is not readily available, sure some books and guides are available but much of the web based data, consists of a paragraph….nothing telling you where to park, what you might see, a particular route and heaven forbid some emergency contact details.
So that was the main ‘why’, well written and reasonably detailed guides which would be posted only after a significant amount of dives and research about a site. Sorry there aren’t 1000 great UK dives here, but what you have here will be accurate, free guides to a limited number of good sites and there will be regular additions!
The rest of the site, the albums, the diary and the links are just little things that you might find interesting.
Oh I’ve just thought of another big change, underwater photography, limited to 36 photographs on film….no flash photography…..leaky home-made housings….trips to the swimming pool trying to find a leak was just another rite of passage!
If you have any comments, drop me a line and thanks for visiting the site!
Rich W
PS, the re-breather was used by Alan Bowser, a blast from the past who members of Bishop Auckland Club should remember!
Latest Photographs


Sea-squirts and rock boring sponge, so different from North East species!
The anchor chain, you can see a link here, is wrapped around the vessel and with the shot-line tied at one side it really is 'difficult to loose the line and have to do a blue water ascent.
A pretty little light, one of the guys thought 'deck light' but with a solid back and close to another two broken lights I would think a bulkhead light of some description, date late victorian to pre WWI.
This is a shot from the back showing that there is no path for the sunlight above the deck, it is blanked off
Another larger boiler, showing the fire hole, head from the donkey boiler back along a 10m deep zone and you'll find it.
You can now look along the prop-shaft tunnel
This is a section of I guess superstructure where the plate has long since been bashed/rusted away. There are plenty of bits like this around the site but this one, at the inshore end of the main gully, is oddball as it 'sits up' meaning that any photos can be a bit more interesting as you can get underneath as per this shot.
A typical north east wreck dive, plates, boilers n bits. In this case probably Jan Van Ryswyck although a few vessels have foundered so the bits are somehwhat mixed!
A shot showing four rods coming out from the sand clos to the propellor tip, so probably part of the engine mounting arrangement.
The divers favourite a Tompot Blenny (Parablennius gattorugine) it's probably the 'mad hair-cut' that makes them popular, this one was on the steps looking for scraps
Scenic stuff with light coming through the hull where the plates have gone and we are left with ribs and bits only
All of the time keep an eye open for Lions Mane Jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) they sting and the tentacles are a few meters long, always approach from up-tide!
When you head 'off-piste' away from the main body there are still large lumps of wreckage
An immature cod (Gadus) this particularly colourful and lonesome specimen is obviously going to be a 'kelp cod' that's to say one of the sub-species(?) which stay inshore all year around and turn red as they age.
Getting out can be a bit of a chew over large rocks but not too problematic if you just take your time
A mast, again off into the gloom
A view over the 'prehistoric shoreline' it's an obvious feature and can be seen on lots of shore sites.
Another footballer work of some description.......
Somewhere in the welter of bubbles is a diver, getting into the water is easy, waddle from your car over the flat concrete and kinda 'fall in'
The 'fresh' Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus) that was stranded at Embleton, this shot gives some indication of scale
The capstan on the fore-deck...again!
This is the top of the sternpost
This one was probably killed by a dolphin, we get quite a few white sided dolphins in the area and despite the popular public conception about friendly dolphins they actively kill porpoises so you rarely if ever see dolphins and porpoise in close proximity
Wrecky bits against the reef- face