How to have an incredible diving holiday in UK waters – Telegraph.co.uk

With tropical waters largely off limits, frustrated enthusiasts can seek solace in some world-class locations close to home

Snorkelling, scuba diving, wild swimming they turn a pedestrian beach holiday into anadventure. Anyone who has swum alongside a shimmering school of fish or been blessed by a dolphin swim-by will know what it is to experience the magic of the sea. All of which is academic because, for now, most dreams of a blue water paradise are on hold.

There is another way to scratch that itch, however and that is to try diving in Britain. Scuba diving from the shore has recently been approved in England and Northern Ireland, and diving from a club or charter boat in England has also been green-lighted by Defra. Up to six members of different households can dive from a boat, as long as they can maintain social distancing. Once underwater, you can shake hands, hug and be as distance-compromised as you like.

In the past week, diving has also opened up in Scotland and Wales, and it is legal to travel into both countries now that their five-mile travel restrictions have been lifted. Diving, in short, is coming home.

Lets say youre a holiday diver, but might just be persuaded to dip a tentative fin into British seas. The crucial message is not to go it alone you need a proper support network to help you address the safety concerns involved in UK diving, and you may need additional training for some of the dives that follow. Consider joining your local branch of BSAC, the British Sub-Aqua Club (bsac.com) or find a friendly dive centre and ask for help.

Britains temperate water is supercharged with oxygen and rich in plankton. Thats why the water is green its a sign not of degradation, but of richness. After a while, you learn to move slowly through this environment, using a torch to pick out detail on our surprisingly colourful reefs. Yes, its colder than you might be used to and visibility is lower, but this is for connoisseurs the more you dive in green water, the more you appreciate its subtle beauty.

I genuinely believe some of Britains dive sites compare favourably with the best of the tropics. Dont agree? Then squeeze into a 7mm wetsuit you may require some lubrication and join me on a tour of domestic alternatives for the frustrated holiday diver.

Go global:Raja Ampat, in eastern Indonesia, is the worlds most biodiverse area, and renowned for its forests of gorgonian fan corals.

Stay at home: You can find colonies of pink fan corals on many of the shipwrecks around Plymouth, but my favourite place is the Eddystone Lighthouse, where they can be found hanging like nets between rocky gullies. UK fans are a bijoux 12in tall by 16in wide, but look at them up close and you will appreciate the intricacies of their structure, the distinct pinkish-gold hue of the feeding polyps.

Pink sea fans are often used by spotted catsharks (yes, Britain has leopard-spotted sharks, too) to secure their developing eggs to the structure. Look really closely and you may even see a superbly camouflaged sea slug, Tritonia nilsodhneri, which mimics the textures of the coral, just as a pygmy seahorse does out in Raja Ampat.

Dive deeper:Dive centre at Fort Bovisand, Plymouth, through Discovery Divers (discoverydivers.net).

Go global: Where dolphins are diffident, pinnipeds are your pals. The autumn months in Mexicos Baja Peninsula see Californian sea lion pups honing their skills in the Sea of Cortez.

Stay at home: In Northumberland, grey seal pups have taken to the water off the Farne Islands, a demanding offshore environment for which they must be fattened and fit in time for winter. Where the Californian sea lion is an unglamorous brown, the grey seal is resplendent in photogenic hues of silver.

Both use play as a means of asserting themselves in their hierarchical societies. They extend this behaviour to visiting divers it usually manifests in fin-nipping and acrobatic displays at close quarters. Some may even try to snuggle, but be wary of those sharp teeth and remember you are dealing with a wild animal.

Dive deeper: Boat charters from Seahouses (farne-islands.com).

Go global: On Mexicos Pacific coast, you can gawp at great whites from thesafety of a reinforced steel cage at Isla Guadalupe.

Stay at home: July sees ocean-going blue sharks appear in Cornwalls offshore waters, following migrating shoals of mackerel. Veteran diver Charles Hood has devised a way to swim safely with British blues from his boat, RIB Logan. You dont even need scuba equipment, though you must be comfortable snorkelling in deep water.

Charles uses a similar baiting system to the Guadalupe boats, chumming the water with a fragrant bucket of mashed mackerel. Blue sharks are classic oceanic predators, with streamlined bodies and long pectoral fins for riding currents. Join them in the water (try not to make a splash) and you can admire their elegance at close quarters with no cage required.

Dive deeper: Boat charters from Penzance, July to September(charleshood.com/rib-logan).

Go global: Arta beach in Djibouti is the setting for a mysterious gathering of whale sharks each winter, when they arrive to gorge on zooplankton. Its a rare opportunity to swim with these gentle giants as they gulp down mouthfuls of globular goodness.

Stay at home: How do you top the biggest fish in the sea? Allow me to present the second-biggest fish in the sea. While Djiboutis whale sharks are sub-adults measuring 10-16ft in length, the basking sharks that visit the Isle of Coll in the Hebrides each summer are grown-ups reaching 25-30ft. They appear off Coll for the same reason the whale sharks aggregate in Djibouti some local eddy causes plankton to amass, providing a feast for filter-feeders. Snorkelling only.

Dive deeper: Boat charters from Oban (baskingsharkscotland.co.uk)

Go global: Every diver who visits Palm Beach, Florida, hopes to dive the Blue Heron Bridge a waterway packed with unusual creatures.

Stay at home: My UK alternative may not triumph when it comes to diversity, but Swanage Pier offers a more serene setting. At the time of writing, the pier had just reopened, saving divers the 100-yard surface swim across Swanage Bay to reach the stanchions. Instead, you pop down a few steps and stroll straight into the water. The site is shallow and protected, so you can spend a good two hours exploring the seabed under the boardwalk.

The area is home to the bold and brave tompot blenny the underwater worlds answer to the robin redbreast. A snorkeller or diver may also encounter cuttlefish, sand-dwelling dragonets and the colourful gastropods known as nudibranchs.

Dive deeper: Dive centre and boat charter operated by Divers Down(diversdownswanage.co.uk).

Go global: They call it the oceans weirdest square mile, a channel between the Indonesian islands of Sulawesi and Lembeh, where the black sand is home to an array of ugly-beautiful beasties such as the hairy frogfish.

Stay at home: Lembeh may be the heartland of the specialism known as muck diving, but the sea lochs of western Scotland offer a similar environment dark sediment interspersed with boulders covered in anemones and immense clusters of brittle stars. The most rewarding locations are Loch Duich, Loch Carron, Loch Creran, Lochaline and Loch Fyne. You will need to research entry and exit points carefully in tandem with local tides to dive here safely. Dont just jump in!

Underwater you should be able to find the incredible firework anemone, or you may run into a sleeping bull huss shark. Sea lochs represent a treasure trove of habitats, so you may find yourself looking at a seabed covered in brittle stars, or communities of flame shells. Its a hidden world of shadows and sea scorpions.

Dive deeper: This is a DIY dive trip your best option is to be part of a club or centre that can organise its own expeditions and arranges for air cylinders to be filled. To get started, buy the book 100 British Shore Dives by Anita Sherwood (britishshoredives.co.uk).

Go global: Fiji is known as the soft coral capital of the world because of its great swathes of these treelike invertebrates, which appear in vivid tones of red, pink, purple and blue.

Stay at home: Look no further than the Isle of Man. Deep water upwellings in the Irish Sea create ideal conditions for reef development at a renowned dive site known as The Burroo, off the Calf. With a maximum depth of just 60ft, the site comprises a series of gullies all plastered in anemones and soft corals, like living wallpaper. Stars of the show are the tiny jewel anemones, which create colour-coordinated zones over every available surface. Framed by pale green water and often in excellent visibility, the Burroo and nearby Chicken Rock are world-class dives.

Dive deeper: Discover Diving at Port St Mary (discoverdiving.im).

Go global: Chuuk (also known as Truk) Lagoon in Micronesia is home to the Ghost Fleet of the Imperial Japanese navy, sunk during Operation Hailstone during the Second World War.

Stay at home: If the Ghost Fleet has an equivalent in the northern hemisphere, its the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow, a natural harbour in Orkney. The ships were scuttled by their own German crews in 1919, while interned under the terms of the Armistice.

Today its possible to dive on four light cruisers and three battleships of the Knig class. Depths vary from 52ft at the top of the cruiser SMS Cln, to 138ft if you want to see the 12in guns on the Kronprinz Wilhelm. Its deep and dark, but rewarding for history buffs who want to see battleship guns that were fired in anger at the British Navy.

Dive deeper: Halton Charters of Stromness (mvhalton.co.uk); also visits Shetland see below.

Go global: The Galapagos Islands are high on the bucket list of most divers, largely due to the schools of hammerhead sharks that gather in the remote northern islands, accessible only by liveaboard dive boat.

Stay at home: With its mosaic of islands and undiluted nature, Shetland is Britains own Galapagos. Underwater visibility is often superb, reaching 65ft or more. There are, admittedly, no hammerhead sharks but you can explore the twilight world of sea caves and marvel at schools of saithe and pollock as they stream around the reefs. Shetland evokes a strong sense of nature untrammeled; it will take your diving to a higher latitude.

If conditions allow, your live-aboard may head to Out Stack, the northernmost rock in the British Isles; its ravine is packed with the most colourful dahlia anemones I have seen. Nearby at Balta Sound, there is the strangely beautiful wreck of the British submarine HMS E49; the sub lies on a bed of pure white sand, a memorial to the 31 crew who died when it struck a mine in 1917.

Dive deeper: MV Valkyrie live-aboard (mv-valkyrie.co.uk); also based in Orkney see above.

Simon Rogerson is the editor ofSCUBA, the official journal of theBritish Sub-Aqua Club

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How to have an incredible diving holiday in UK waters - Telegraph.co.uk