England

Sometimes I forget how incredibly lucky I am living

Located right on my doorstep, Swanage is probably the most-famous diveable pier in the UK. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve dived here. I suspect most British divers have visited the pier at least once, but for those that haven’t, Swanage Pier is located on the Isle of Purbeck on the south coast in Dorset. The pier is perfectly set up for those like me that enjoy an easy life. You can drive right on to the pier and park close to steps down to the water. As you can imagine, this makes the pier extremely popular, so arriving early is key. There is a filling station and a dive shop, so all your diving needs are catered for.

Established in 1958, it boasts Britain’s oldest dive school, Divers Down. Pat and Pete the current custodians of the business have an absolute wealth of knowledge of the local diving and operate shuttle boat services to all of the top dive sites, including probably Britain’s most-dived wreck, the SS Kyarra. It’s always worth popping in for a chat while you wait for your cylinders to fill. They also sell a mean pie! But it’s the pier that I love and over the years it has become an old friend. A short walk from your car with the help of free-to-use trolleys for your kit brings you to a platform halfway down the pier. A quick giant-stride entry drops you

into the middle of the action and you only have two choices - turn left into the shallows or turn right and head to the end of the pier and slightly deeper water. Being a photographer, I can spend hours within just a few square metres so I will rarely explore the whole pier on a single dive. The relative safety of the pier is a magnet for all kinds of animals. As the water warms, giant spider crabs venture in to breed, while clouds of sand eels can get so big that they block out the sun with larger fish like bass and pollock in close pursuit. Wrasse can often be found busying themselves building nests and if you look carefully, nudibranchs can be found crawling their A quick giant-stride way around the entry drops you into sea floor. Then there is the critter the middle of the that every diver action and you only loves - the tompot blenny. They are have two choices funny fish to watch and - turn left into the are in abundance here. Often popping out shallows or turn from their hole to see right and head to who is invading their territory, they will escort you the end of the pier off the premises but then get in a fight as they venture into another tompot’s territory. If you disturb the sea floor by mistake the area fills with these charming little fish looking to see if you have uncovered a tasty little morsel for their lunch. The pier still uncovers new delights and only a handful of years ago a new shrimp was discovered, Periclimenes sagittifer or better known as the snakelocks anemone shrimp. These blue and white exotic-looking shrimp are more used to the warmer waters of Europe but have now made the pier their home. It’s very hard to get bored here and that’s probably what makes Swanage pier so popular.

The tompot blenny is a mediumsized, elongated fish with a large head and big eyes. It has distinctive frilly tentacles on the top of its head - for which it has been given the nickname ‘the fish with antlers’!

Underwater photographer Saeed Rashid lives a stone’s throw from the South Coast’s waters, and here he waxes lyrical about some of his favourite ‘local’ dives

Photographs by Saeed Rashid

Despite their name, cuttlefish are not fish but intelligent invertebrates related to the octopus, squid, and nautilus. These fascinating creatures can count, exert selfcontrol, and have numerous wily tactics to evade predators.

I was in two minds whether to mention Kimmeridge to you because I really see this as my secret place. Yes, yes, I know it’s not really secret, but you don’t often see divers there except maybe at the weekend getting on a RIB and heading out to the famous ledges rather than shore diving the bay. There have been so many times I’ve visited with my buddy and we have been the only people there.

Be prepared for a shallow dive even at highwater, which is the time I would recommend getting there. You will be lucky to find any water deeper than 4m, but this shallow sunlit water can be absolutely full of life, and being a nature reserve, makes it all the better.

The topography at Kimmeridge Bay is made up of shale and dolomite rock ridges that stretch from the shore for miles out to sea. In the summer months forests of bootlace weed spring up from the seabed stretching up to the surface. Although on a much smaller scale, swimming between it reminds me of the giant kelp that’s found in the temperate waters around the world. This is the type of weed that used to terrify me as a child - one minute you’d be swimming along happily and the next minute it felt like a sea monster had leapt from the depths to grab your leg.

Now, as an avid diver, I know it’s an invaluable habitat for juvenile fish which you always see hiding in among the fronds, and if you look carefully you can often find a stalked jellyfish (Calvadosia campanulata). Unlike other jellyfish species these small little guys can be found clinging onto the weed where they spend their life waiting for their food to drift by. Although not rare, they are not found in many places, seeking out very sheltered shallow waters of the south west of England, and Kimmeridge Bay is a hotspot for them.

Kimmeridge is the sort of place where I want to spend all day. Go for a long dive then lay about on land, cook up some lunch on the BBQ then maybe get out the paddleboard for a gentle sweep around the bay. It truly is one of Dorset’s little gems but please don’t all rush down there at once, otherwise my partner will be very upset that I told you about ‘our’ spot.

The small town of Babbacombe on Devon’s English Riviera has a secret. Each spring hidden from most locals and the holidaymakers sitting on the beach, there is a silent invasion happening. Just under the waves thousands of cuttlefish return to the shallow water to breed. After spending most of their short lives in depths of up to 150m, cuttlefish migrate their way back to the bay to find a mate and reproduce.

Cuttlefish are amazing creatures. They have green blood, three hearts and the ability to change both the colour and texture of their skin in a flash, more akin to something plucked from a sci-fi movie than the ‘cephalopoda’ family to which they belong. Shared with the octopus and squid and like their Cephalopoda cousins, they are also incredibly intelligent. If you are lucky enough to dive with cuttlefish you will know what an amazing sight they are and sometimes you can tell they are trying to work you out. I’ve been on reefs where a cuttlefish has followed me around for the whole dive going where I go and looking at the things I look at. It followed me closer than my buddy at the time. Due to fishing pressures cuttlefish numbers have dropped in recent years, but you can still be lucky and get there just at the right time to witness one of the natural world’s great wonders, which is right on our doorstep. If you are after depth, then again like many of the places I mention here you are out of luck but what delights await you in the shallows. The diving here is incredibly easy with the car park right next to the beach and you can just kit up and stroll across the sand into the water.

How can I talk about diving on the south coast without mentioning Lundy Island and its resident grey seal population. Up there at the top of all of my diving experiences anywhere in the world is swimming with the seals at Lundy Island. It’s like a drug that I need a hit of each year. I forget how lucky we are to have an abundant population around our coast estimated to now be more than 120,000 grey seals in Britain, representing 40% of the world’s population and 95% of the European population. So if you are a British diver and you haven’t seen a seal yet, it’s only a matter of time.

These playful marine mammals are just the most fun you can have under the waves. Growing up to two-anda-half metres long and 300kg in weight, it can be quite intimidating when they rush right up to you, but they are just like puppies, all happy and eager to play with their human friends. Like dogs, seals have so much character and it’s even possible to work out the individual personalities. Some are very shy and will hide in the kelp or behind a rock darting away as you approach. Some like to play cheeky games like knock and run where they come up behind you, grab a fin then dart away, whereas others are all over you, climbing over your back, between your legs and even grab hold of you as if to never let you go.

I was very lucky to be on one of the first Hi Ho charter boats back to Lundy after the first lockdown and from the first moment we entered the water, we were completely mobbed. Very often you would have just one or two seals around you, but it was like all-out war on the silly playmates who seemed to have actually missed us. I’m pleased to say that my longest UK dive was at Lundy. Actually scratch that - my longest ever dive at just over two-and-a-half hours was here. There was no way I was getting out of the water when it was just so much fun down there. Apparently, there is a wreck at Lundy which I am happy to say I’ve never dived, because why would you when there are seals.

Blue sharks have a slim, torpedo shaped body and are graceful swimmers. They reach up to four metres in length and can weigh up to 450 pounds.

I was asked just to tell you about four of my favourite dive sites, but I’m not going until I’ve told you to go and check out blue sharks along the south coast. They appear in the summer all the way along the south west and you usually are best to snorkel, not dive. I’ve had plenty of shark encounters around the world, but these blue sharks beat all of them hands down mostly because of how close you get to them. They are literally in your face and bumping you all around. It’s really hard to describe the experience so I recommend you drop what you’re doing, find a charter boat that’s going out to find them and book yourself on to see for yourself. You can thank me later. n

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