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


This Pink (or Northern) Prawn (Pandalus montagui) was being actively stalked by a Common Lobster (Homarus Gammarus), you can see the lobbies claws!
Some of the boulders have quite a cap of filter feeders and look pretty!
I think an immature Sunstar (Pycnopodia helianthoides) although I am wavering as it was too smooth in my eyes, still lots of people will correct me.....I hope!
A close up of some 100 year old teak decking, in the shelter this decking has lasted remarkably well and is still 'tough' and not at all spongey and falling apart.
When you get out of the kelp zone you will reach a small cliff, varying in height between 2 and 3m
On the West side of the site, towards the North end. It looks ideal for scallops but no sign of any or indeed empty predated shells.
More identifiable bits, the steam powered windlass that was mounted near the bow, the main steel mast in lying to the left (North) up and onto a reef and there are bits of bollard and the like adjacent.
A bike.......a bloody bike!
I had to add one shot of wreckage that could be identified, so you have the stern of SS Rondo which of course you recognised despite the dirty water!
I was trying to show how much sand had been scoured out of the iste, you can see here that there is a section of shale wall that's maybe fifty centimeters high where there was no weed hence it was covered prior to the last storms.
The concreted in anchor, this is located on its own 'up' the gully on the seaward side of the Hopper rock
This lot, 187kg, was raised over the weekend of 11/12 June 22 from a single fishing mark (The Doctors or Wash House @ Howick).
You have to worry about the total amount of lead festering in the sea around our coastline.
Not the greatest but a Sea Comb, probably a Sea Gooseberry (Pleurobrachia plies) or at least that is what I have always called em when anyone asks! I like watching the little bits down the side change colour as they move, a very interesting little critter, I should take a bit of matt black plastic to try and get a photograph of one that is clearer.
Settling down on a patch of gravel and waiting until I bimbled over.......
A Short Spined Sea-Scorpion (Myoxocephalus scorpius), a nice 'easy' fish to get nice photographs of, as you can probably tell if you go through all of the albums.
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
A Devonshire cup-coral (Caryophyllia smithii), there are loads of these multi-coloured critters on the wreckage