Channel Islands

Ian Sibley-Calder, 41

Game for a laugh
Ian Sibley-Calder, 41, is a GP from Hornsey, east Yorkshire. He has been diving for eight years, and is a club instructor and a medical referee for the BSAC. He and his non-diving wife Jane, whom he describes as a ‘dive widow’, have two children – Imogen, ten, and eight-year-old Freddie. Ian visited the Channel Islands by liveaboard.

I am a member of both Hull BSAC and – as we have a holiday home in North Wales – of Anglesey Divers. Anglesey Divers chartered Maureen of Dart, a liveaboard, for a trip to the Channel Islands in the autumn of 1999, and I went with a member of the Hull branch.

The boat left from Dartmouth, and it was a bit rough on the way across, with Force 4 gales. Maureen of Dart was once a fishing boat and she rocked a fair bit, so on the rougher nights we moored in the ports. As the week wore on, the weather improved and we were able to do night dives in little coves. The boat worked its way from Guernsey to Sark to Jersey, and we stopped at each of the islands. On one of the night dives, off the island of Sark, a shallow dive at about 7m, we saw loads of flatfish, the largest about 60cm long, and gravel cucumbers.

The dives were usually between 20m and 35m, some with short decompression stops so you had to know what you were doing. I enjoyed diving a couple of wrecks, a minesweeper at about 32m, and the Cement wreck. When we dived the Cement wreck there were cuttlefish, congers and lots of shoals of fish. But what I really enjoyed were the scenic dives, I’d definitely recommend the Channel Islands if you’re into fish, seaweeds and anemones.

The water and air temperature were similar at about 18°C, so I wore a drysuit and thermal underwear. The underwater visibility ranged from 6 to 30m, and the diving reminded me of St Abbs, with warmer water and greater numbers of fish.

I learned a lot on the trip, as there were a couple of people who were using rebreathers and it was interesting watching them get their stuff together. There were also two marine biologists, who’d brought all their identification books; and experienced photographers, so I got lots of advice on using my new Sea & Sea camera. The holiday exceeded my expectations in terms of both the diving and the company – we had a good laugh.

Alex Gooderham, 33

Stormy weather
Alex Gooderham, 33, is a BSAC advanced instructor, and lives in Uxbridge, Middlesex. He works as a service engineer for a manufacturer, and is married to Andrea, his usual dive buddy. They have visited Sark twice with other divers from their local branch Northwood and Ruislip.

I have organized several trips for groups from our BSAC branch – in 1995 we visited Skye and in 2000 it was the Isles of Scilly. We went to Sark in 1998 and 1999. I came across an advertisement for Sark Diving Services and booked through them.

To get an idea of what the Channel Islands had to offer I wanted to do a mixture of reef and wreck diving. The decisions on which sites to visit were a combination of Andy’s [from Sark Diving Services] advice and what the group wanted to do. In 1999 I wanted to aim for the more challenging wrecks, but a storm prevented us diving after the fourth day of the holiday. The tides were really phenomenal: varying by as much as 9m.

The visibility on both trips was good, especially in 1998, when there were some good reef and wall dives with 15–20m visibility. On one dive in 1999 we were down at 35m – it was a drift dive in a flat area east of Sark – and, despite the stormy weather around at that time, the visibility was 10–15m. We found a huge crayfish – I wish I’d had my camera.

The most memorable dive was the east face of L’Etac, due south of Sark. There is a steep drop from about 18m down to 50 or 60m. You see plants and animals typical of high tidal zones, such as scavengers and anemones – it’s really picturesque. Slightly to the east of L’Etac is Les Vingt Clos, another good dive, which has a vertical wall from 14 to 31m, with soft corals, anemones and lots of fish. We also did a great night dive in Sark’s new harbour. As we sat in the dark we could see the plankton bioluminescing when we moved our hands, and when we put our torches back on there were lots of cuttlefish shimmering with bands of colour. The storms that preceded our trip reduced visibility and curtailed our visit, so there are still some dives I’d like to do.

Rohan Holt, 38

Value for money
Rohan Holt, 38, is a marine biologist at the Countryside Council for Wales. A BSAC first class diver, he began diving 22 years ago, and dives as part of his work. He and his partner, Kirsten, live near Conwy, North Wales, and belong to Menai SAC. In 1999 they visited the Channel Islands for a week on a liveaboard.

Kirsten and I had been on local hardboat trips with Anglesey Divers, which were just day trips, when we decided to take a week’s holiday in the Channel Islands with the club. It was a good crowd aboard the boat, the MV Maureen, and the expertise of the crew was impressive.

As a marine biologist, the most noticeable thing I found about the Channel Islands was that the marine life is similar to the southwest of England and quite different from my local diving. I saw things I’d never seen before. The dead men’s fingers, for example, were red (Alcyonium glomeratum), rather than white, and sea fans were common and well developed. On the night dives we saw a lot of large cuttlefish, which don’t tend to be seen much in Wales, and unusual anemones.

One of the most memorable dives was a site called Anfré, west of Sark, an area with the most attractive and spectacular diving. It was striking, with huge boulders, gullies and steep cliff faces covered with jewel anemones, and a lot of cuckoo wrasse.

Most evenings, the boat headed into Guernsey. It was a short stroll into St Peter Port from the harbour. I was surprised to find that consumer goods such as electronic items, clothes and drink were cheaper than mainland UK, as they’re effectively duty free.

A liveaboard is possibly the best way of divers seeing the Channel Islands, but if I went again I’d probably try to find someone with more specialist biological knowledge of the local area. If I didn’t go on a liveaboard, I’d love to stay on Sark – it’s quiet, relaxed, and there are no traffic fumes.

Colin Gray, 35

A lark in Sark
Colin Gray, a diver for 35 years, is in his fifties, and was a teacher before he retired. He and his wife, Maggie, live in Blandford Forum, Dorset and complete about 100 dives each year, mainly in UK waters.

Maggie and I have visited the Channel Islands four times in total: twice we’ve stayed on Sark, and the other two visits were on different liveaboards. On our last visit we stayed on Sark. I found that the visibility had suffered since our previous visit, as Sark now dumps sewage into the sea. The drop in visibility was notable.

Sark as an island is a jewel in its own right, and some of the diving is excellent. The sites off the east side are particularly good. As a marine-life photographer I find fish life the greatest challenge, and photographing them around the Channel Islands is very difficult as the tides are so strong. There are short windows between tides, and I’ve found that various local skippers are not good at predicting slack waters, the best time for photography. This is perhaps because drift dives are so popular in the waters around Guernsey and Sark. However, when we were aboard Stewart Farman’s [who runs McGregor Cruises] boat over ten years ago, he was reasonably successful at predicting slack waters.

On our last trip to the Channel Islands we stayed in self-catering accommodation on Sark. We have always visited the area in August, and this trip was no exception. It was successful and easy-going. We enjoyed all the dives, except for the last one, on the Cement wreck. This wreck used to be fabulous, but the last time we went it was dead, and covered in silt. This may well have been temporary – a combination of winds and tides – and I hope it was, as it used to be superb for fish life.

In the Channel Islands divers are not allowed to take shellfish, so crayfish are abundant. The Channel Islands is also the only place where we’ve seen such large and numerous bream. While I might dive the area again, there are certainly other places that I prefer, such as the west coast of Scotland, the Isles of Scilly and southwest Ireland – as far as I’m concerned the further west you go, the better.





About the Channel Islands
Lying off England’s south coast the Channel Islands are, in fact, closer to France than the UK. They are made up of five main islands – Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm – and a number of tiny islets. Well known as a tax haven, the islands are not part of the UK or the EU, but are Crown Dependencies, which means they are part of the British Isles.

Jersey is the largest and most developed island, and home to Jersey Zoo, founded by Gerald Durrell. Sark is only four square kilometres in area, and does not allow cars on the island.

What to look out for
Cuttlefish, pollack, cuckoo wrasse, ballan wrasse, corkwing wrasse, black-cheeked blennies, tompot blennies, rays, crayfish, lobster, slender spider crabs, scorpion spider crabs, nudibranchs, jewel anemones, snakelocks anemones, conger eels, pink gorgonia and sunset coral. Steve Powell

How to get there
By air: the Channel Islands are served
be several airlines departing from a number of British airports. These include:
British European (tel: 08705 676676,
web site: http://www.british-european.com) and
British Airways (tel: 0845 7733377,
web site: http://www.britishairways.com).

By sea: Condor Ferries runs both ferries and
Seacat services (departing from Poole and Weymouth) tel: 0845 3452000,
web site: http://www.condorferries.co.uk.

Dive centres
Aquanaut Divers (Jersey) tel: 01534 617986
Dive Guernsey tel: 01481 714525,
web site: http://www.geker.freeserve.co.uk,
e-mail:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Guernsey School of Diving and Sarnia Skin Divers
tel: 01481 722884,
e-mail:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Jersey Underwater Centre
tel: 01534 861817.
Sark Diving Services tel: 01481 832565,
web site: http://www.scubaline.co.uk,
e-mail:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Liveaboards
Maureen of Dart tel: 01803 835449,
e-mail:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
McGregor Cruises tel: 01503 263584,
mobile: 0374 148399.

Tourist offices
Guernsey (also covers Herm)
tel: 01481 723552,
web site: http://www.guernseytouristboard.com.
Jersey tel: 01534 500777,
web site: http://www.jersey.com.
Sark tel: 01481 832345,
web site: www.sark-tourism.com.