Porthkerris (by David Cumber)

Porthkerris lies around 15 miles from the village of Helston, which is approximately 40 minutes drive from Falmouth in Cornwall. Getting there can be a long drive, as many of the roads are single carriageways and there seemed to be a high probability of getting stuck behind a tractor at some point. Newquay airport is only an hour away, and gives another option of getting there, with flights beginning to leave from London to there. Accommodation is plentiful. Camping is available for the hardy people amongst you, but you also have the option of bed and breakfast in the local surrounding villages. I stayed in a bungalow in St Keverene, which was arranged by the dive centre I dived with, and breakfast was provided at the dive centre. All very easy to organise and quite comfortable.

Now the diving. Well I was impressed I must say. I had a day diving of a 45ft catamaran, followed by some shore diving. The boat was quite spacious, with plenty of room for gear and for chilling out between dives. The initial dive was at Headland reef, named as the reef was an exact replica underwater of the headland above it. So, navigation isn't a problem as you can get a great idea of the reef topography from on the boat and take any necessary compass headings. We dropped down the shot line to the bottom at 21-23M. This appeared to be close to the edge of the reef, although the bottom was still sloping away and looked to go beyond +30M, it looked like plain sand from around this point on. The visibility was between 5-9M, being better in the deep, with the shallows being churned up slightly by wave action. This dive trip was at the end of August, the end of the summer, with the water at it's warmest. We were diving in water between 16-18C. The skipper said that the visibility gets much better during the winter (but 9M was plenty for me), although the water is obviously colder when it can reach around 6C in the winter requiring a dry suit. We dived in 7mm semi-dry wetsuits, with 7mm long johns and a 7mm shortie with hood (a nice figure hugging 14mm on your trunk, which gives you a nice flat stomach). The water was comfortable for a 40-minute dive, I did however get a little chilly on the second dive. We dived this site after seeing what the current was like on the Manacles (which is meant to provide the best diving in this area), the skipper felt that the current was to strong, and I had to agree. The wind was coming from the east with about a 2ft chop. When the shot line was dropped it was pulled strongly against the chop, with the current running from west to east, it would have been quite a fast ride, to fast for an enjoyable dive. This area is affected greatly by the current, and which dive site you visit is dependent on them. You may not get to visit the site you want to.

Top

Headland reef, had a plateau with sloping sides. We dropped on the left-hand slope as you look at the land, and began to work our way to shore. With the sloping side it was easy to a multilevel dive coming up from the 20+M to the shallow water on the top of the roof. In the deeper water, the reef was very rocky with the occasional urchin, and wrasse visiting you. The main fish I saw was wrasse, and they're various different types to observe. As you made your up the reef, kelp started to appear. From 18M upward the kelp became more plentiful and covered everything. As we got up to the 9-12M there was the occasional rock outcrops (I wouldn't call them pinnacles), which provided some nice swim throughs. After the first dive, we travelled to a sheltered bay for our surface interval. There we bobbed for an hour. Warm soup, tea and coffee were provided. With the time taken to get everyone on board from the first dive, the wait and travel time, we were entering the water again after a two-hour surface interval. The second dive was a wreck dive, on the Camarvan. This, I was told was sunk in 1917. It was some sort of gunboat that was torpedoed, and sunk as it was trying to make it to shore, and sunk in 22-25M of water. The guns mounted on the boat were quickly salvaged, and as the wreck has been there for such a long time it has really started to break apart. The shot line was dropped right next to three boilers of the boat. As the ship has fallen apart the boilers have rolled slightly to the starboard side. The depths of these were 22-23M. These boilers are the home of lots of marine life. Rather, than the odd wrasse, we saw two schools of wrasse in this area. Although I didn't see one, Anglerfish (monkfish) also hang out here. The structure of the ship was hard to make out, but you could see many steel beams of the structure and swimming between this we found a pipefish.

Top

Drawana Rocks

Around the ship was a sandy bottom with not much to see. We were told to head towards the southwest if we wanted to head for a shallow reef. But the bottom seemed to get deeper as you head to the reef. So we had the choice of heading this way, but being several meters above the reef with not a lot to see or staying on the wreck. We decided to stay on the wreck and made our ascent from the boiler area. I felt that this really should have been the first dive of the day. We would have been able to have gone a bit deeper on the wreck (without causing us to have a reverse profile). Also after our surface interval we had not completely of gassed, and as the second dive was all at maximum depth (without much chance of doing a multi-level) our bottom time was reduced. Maybe the sequence of dives was controlled but the conditions, but we seemed to have had a slack tide for both dives.

The last dive site was Drawana rocks, which is a shore dive. This was a cracking dive. Quite a large rock formation lies just yards from the beach in about 9-13M of water, and kelp is growing all over it. In between was a stony bottom that was swarming with blennies. The rock formation provided lots of swim throughs. Urchins were clinging to the formations, contesting for space with the sea stars and the odd anemone. Again several varieties of wrasse were always cruising around. The visibility was around 10M on my first dive here. On the second dive the next day, the wind had picked up from the east and it had got quite choppy, this cut visibility to 3-5M. As entry is via the beach, entry can be a bit more uncomfortable due to wave action, when the wind is up. The rock formation is large enough to keep you entertained for a good hour dive. This dive site is good enough for me to want to return to it again.

Top of page