Report by Mark Swan
Our planned dive with Channel Diver from Brighton was blown out, so Jenny JC and I decided to have a look at St Andrew’s Lakes dive site.
After travelling along a quiet road overlooking the lake, you come to the gate which is kept shut but not locked. The track then leads down to a group of portacabins. Entry was £17.
There were a few groups of divers already there and the people running the place made us coffees and talked us through the dive map on the wall. They are getting a power supply in the next few weeks which should mean they can get a compressor on site.
Speaking to some of the other divers, they said the vis is normally 5-8m, but as we’d had a months worth of rain over the last couple of days, it was currently down to 3-4m. Water temperature was 14 degrees near the surface and 7 degrees at 35m.
They had some kit up benches made out of pallets next to the water’s edge.
Entry was easy. Then we made our way along a preplanned route taking in most of the underwater sites. It is easy to navigate, as lines link them. It was dark below 25m and about 3m vis max, so you need a torch, but had 4m vis above this and it was light.
Finished with dsmb’s, then a safety stop on the shallow training platforms and an easy exit.
The people here are making a real effort and the depth is great for Sports Diver+ training. Having a compressor will make a big difference, but as long as you take a couple of cylinders you are ok. It only took an hour from Sutton which makes it a much more convenient deep training lake.
Dive details – Max depth 35m, Time 46 mins, Gas 32%
