WRECK DIVING: Diving in the waters off the Pembrokeshire Coast has always provided some of the most interesting and varied diving in the country. It is due to the dramatic nature of the coast and Islands that despite almost any weather conditions we are able to find somewhere to dive, whether it be wreck, drift or scenic diving that your group requires! During 2004 a number of wrecks were discovered and dived that as far as known were lost for some time, some almost certainly have never been dived before! One of these wrecks, the Luminance was found and dived by a techie group, this wreck certainly has never been dived before and remains full of ‘treasure’ to be found!

The Lucy (36-40m)

The Behar (16m)

The underwater habitats support a rich and varied fauna and flora - this is due to the warm Atlantic Drift current bathing the western coast of the UK. It's a diver's paradise - once experienced, never forgotten. It's very rare for a boat to be unable to launch and diving to take place. Sheltered coves and inlets are abundant and relatively unexplored. There are a multitude of wrecks, reefs, drop-offs and exhilarating drift dives - diving to suit every experience and taste.

On Friday 21st July we were booked to do a technical dive to 55m but the hardboat we had booked was impounded and an alternative boat was used called Overdale. Great boat and Bob was a good skipper. So we planned to dive the Lucy on Friday. Very good dive for all levels of divers. The seabed is 40m but as she is so intact you do not need to scale the hull walls. There is an abundance of marine life and soft coral growing all over the Lucy. Her deck sits at around 35m and the main area of interest is the wheelhouse, which is in around 25-30m of water. Single tank divers can do the wreck in one go but avoid the 40m areas otherwise your No decompression will run out. Very easy for twinset divers as you have oodles of time to explore her nooks and crannies. Second dive on Friday was the Behar wreck which is a big merchant steamer. This is a cable laying boat and she sank in 1940 by some German mines. Quite broken up now but great second shallow 16m-wreck dive. With alot of areas with manageable swim through's and an impressive boiler sitting upright. Plenty of life around including lobsters, Pollack, and cod.

Friday afternoon we went to get our twins filled at some potter farm. Brian took us there. Some scruffy surly chap had a compressor and 02 cylinders sitting in his garage. We felt very uneasy about this but in fact he was a very well known gas blender offering his services to other industries.

Saturday we had the rib so only part of the group went out. The above dives we completed again so some of us were not missing out. The decision not to dive was due to having twinsets on a rib, which didn't have means to secure our kit. Plus I have a very bad back and the bumpy ride would have caused alot of discomfort. And we booked a hardboat not a rib. So we had been booked under false pretences.

Sunday we were all back on Overdale. We left late as some of the group were delayed due to gas fills not completed the day before. We found West Wales Dive Centre nearby and they looked professional. However, we had a susspected gas contamination problem with one of our guys. He was put on oxygen after complaining of nausea, dizziness, tightening of his chest, difficulty to breath and a bad taste in his air. Unfortunately this spoiled the rest of the day for all of us. Plus quite a few of the tanks were contaminated from the dive centre. They had a notice outside saying 'Don't worry if the air taste funny, we have changed the filter' Maybe we were unlucky this time, but Wales will have to wait a long time before we visit again. We did compete 2 dives on Sunday including Maria's head and The Bridge. Both full of life, and we managed to stroke a Dogfish. This area is worth diving but be carefull who you book with.