Plymouth – Hard Boat

At the dive show last Sunday we met ‘South West Diving’ who operate out of the Mountbatten centre in Plymouth.

In order to keep their boats going over winter and in partnership with the Mountbatten centre who want to fill rooms over winter, they have a weekend winter package which includes 2 dives per day and includes Saturday night meal/accommodation and Sunday breakfast.

They “guarantee” diving as the dive sites included in the package are all within Plymouth sound, they said that it would take Poseidon to be having a monumentally bad day to have diving cancelled as there are numerous sheltered sites they can use, they can’t guarantee visibility but I would be concerned if they said they could. We will have a variety of different dive sites to choose from with different depths and content. Some of the dive sights included are Barn Pool, Eastern Kings and Firestone Bay which are all spectacular (if the underwater conditions behave themselves) with up to 40m wall dives. Breakwater Fort is covered in Sea Fans and cup corals and the Glen Strathallen is a well broken up wreck (the underwater demolition school used to use it for practice) but there is normally plenty of life. If the weather turns out to be ok on the day then there is the option to go further out, a day trip to the Scylla and James Egan Lane would be an extra £5 per person. It sounds like we will have plenty of options to choose from and should be able to cater for all tastes.

The price of this package is £100 per person. There is no separate price if you want to arrange your own accommodation but it will be possible for non-divers to stay at the Mountbatten centre for £25 B&B and an evening meal on the Saturday night would be in the region of £10-£15. The Mountbatten centre is no 4* hotel but for a one night stay I am sure it will be warm, welcoming and its only 50meters from where the boat will be and it has free parking.

They also provide hot food and drinks on the boat during the day so on the face of it, the only additional costs will be transport to/from Plymouth, air refills and beer tokens for Saturday night.

I am hoping to book this package for the weekend of the 12th/13th of March and this trip is suitable for Ocean Diver and above. Could you please let me know if you are interested in this trip, we need a minimum of 10 divers. Due to his extensive local knowledge, Mark Harrison has volunteered to be the nominated Dive Leader for this trip.

Contact Ian for more information.