Sark’s secret beauty

Wall flowers: this wall inside Sark’s Gouliot Caves is adorned with beadlet anemones All photos: Sue Daly A beadlet anemone gets its name from the row of vivid blue beads below its tentacles Rare treat: the purple-striped anemone prawn lives among the snakelocks anemone and is hardly seen in Britain outside the Channel Islands Fan base: a diver looms over a sea fan at Guillaumesse Gem of a dive: a diver swims through the darkness of Jewel Cave Spring is the best time of year to spot the Polycera faeroensis nudibranch. Havre Gosselin, the bay on the south side of Sark’s westernmost headland, marks the end of the dive Route through Gouliot Caves Map of the English Channel Islands and Sark

It may come as a surprise that one of Britain’s best scenic dives is found inside a cave and is little more than 5m deep. The site in question is located in Sark, one of the smallest Channel Islands. At just three miles long and little over a mile wide, the island has more than 40 miles of craggy coastline. It’s a rugged mixture of sheer cliffs, tiny bays and rock stacks littered with offshore reefs and half-submerged pinnacles. Faults in the granite and the constant pounding of the sea have combined to riddle this spectacular coast with caves.

Many are dead ends and others are too high above the low tide line to make them interesting dives. Then there are the Gouliot Caves. Weaving through the westernmost headland of the island, they form a complex of tunnels from narrow slits and gullies to enormous boulder-strewn caverns. Most importantly, the caves are open to the sea on both sides of the headland, so water sweeps through with the ebb and flow of the tide.

With a tidal range of up to 10m, there is a huge movement of water around Sark. This magical combination of geology and tide has created the perfect habitat for a wealth of sea creatures normally only seen in deeper water, and the walls of the caves are smothered in sponges, anemones, sea squirts, giant barnacles and even soft and cup corals. Since Victorian times, an expedition to the Gouliot Caves has been a must for the more intrepid visitor to the island. Photographs remain of groups in woolly bathing suits and rubber swimming caps shivering in the caves; today, they’re still visited on foot on the lowest spring tides. The scramble down the cliffs isn’t for the faint-hearted, and the exposed marine life is closed up and dripping; to my eyes, not at its most attractive. By far the best way to experience the caves is from underwater but, as with any dive in Sark, timing is essential.

The dive begins on the north side of the headland a couple of hours after high water. The tide will still be running from the south, but slowing as it nears the half-tide slack (at full tilt, it runs at ten knots through the nearby Gouliot Passage, which separates Sark from the islet of Brecqhou). I prefer to dive while the tide’s still running slightly, to make best use of slack water in the caves. There’s nothing to see of the entrance above water, just what appears to be a corner of solid rock, but underwater a triangular opening begins a couple of metres below the surface. Ten metres or so inside, the ceiling lowers and the pebble sea bed rises slightly to give the impression that the way forward could be too narrow. Don’t worry – there’s plenty of room without scraping your equipment above or below.

It’s here that I’ve often encountered a school of grey mullet startled by my sudden appearance. It’s hard to say who jumps the most! This is the Sponge Cave, the darkest part of the dive, where you’ll definitely need your torch. The walls are covered in anemones and oaten pipe hydroids but, as the name suggests, the most dominant creatures here are the sponges. To your left, rays of sunlight reveal a second opening to the north side of the headland that would bring you out close to where you entered. Instead, carry on ahead past a patch of fluffy peach-coloured plumose anemones, a common species around much of Britain but something of a rarity this far south.

The cave is wider now, with plenty of room for two or more divers side by side. Red, orange and green beadlet anemones dominate the walls. Look closely and you’ll see the string of iridescent blue ‘beads’ just beneath the tentacles. Ahead is light again, glowing greeny-blue around either side of a rock column reaching up to the surface. It doesn’t matter which side of it you go, as both ways take you into the beautifully named Jewel Cave, the highlight of the dive.

By now the tide should be slack, although there’s nearly always a certain amount of surge, making photography something of a challenge. From now on, you’re in about 4–5m of water, with air above you as the cave opens out into a large crevice rather than an overhead environment. Above and below the water line, the walls are plastered with anemones in every possible shade, spotlit by sunlight shafting in from above.

Pink, white and orange elegant anemones crowd the base of the rock column, along with patches of jewel anemones in every shade of the rainbow. There are beadlet anemones everywhere else, and it’s worth floating up to the surface to see them all hanging from the walls above like thousands of giant fruit gums. Back underwater, explore to your left where it darkens again and you’ll find another expanse of plumose anemones before the water becomes too shallow.

Going back the other way, the tide gradually begins taking you through the Jewel Cave towards the exit. Jewel anemones take over in force now; this is the only place I know where you’ll see them this shallow. Ballan wrasse and shannies are the most common fish in this part of the caves, and there are often spider crabs trundling along the pebbles below. By now, the light and tide will get stronger. Fluffy fingers of soft coral emerge from the walls, which widen towards the exit. All too soon, you’ll be swept through an archway of kelp and washed out into Havre Gosselin, the bay on the south side of the headland where your boat should be waiting. If you’ve timed it right, you’ll have enjoyed at least half an hour in the caves and your depth gauge will barely have touched 5m.

The Gouliot Caves are just one of many fabulous dives in the waters around Sark: as it’s an island, there’s nearly always somewhere sheltered if the wind picks up. To the south lies L’Étac, a cone of rock rising more than 30m above sea level and a breeding site for puffins and other sea birds. Beneath the waves is equally dramatic, with boulder slopes and walls dropping to more than 50m. Once you’ve passed through the waving green fronds of the kelp forest, you’ll see sea fans, jewel anemones and red fingers of soft coral, a feature of this and many other sites in Sark. Here at L’Étac, there’s a wall at about 25m, spattered with bright-yellow sunset cup corals, a southern species rarely found in British waters.

About half a mile away lies the Vingt Clos reef, which only reveals its kelpy head on the very lowest spring tides. It’s a fantastic dive, with walls so sheer that swimming along them feels like exploring the sides of a huge shipwreck. About 30m below, the bright shingle sea bed slopes down to a jumble of boulders, where crabs and lobsters peer from their holes.

The east side of the island offers more fabulous reef diving in the lee of the prevailing wind. The Grune du Nord and Ecrillais are both great scenic sites with pinnacles and gullies. My favourite reef is Guillaumesse, off the west coast, which is sheltered from the tide four hours either side of low water. Here, you’ll find everything that’s best about diving in Sark, all in 25m or less. There are walls, boulders and gullies covered in jewel anemones, soft corals, sponges, urchins and sea fans, and more cuckoo wrasse than anywhere else. They live in harems of several females and one male.

There are also at least two pure-white sea fans at Guillaumesse, a southern version of the normally pink coral. The huge variety of marine life here and long period of slack water have made it the obvious choice for Sark’s underwater nature trail. A laminated sheet available from the Sark Visitor Centre (www.sark.info) shows the locations of ten numbered points and illustrates the key species at each one – an excellent way to identify some of the wonderful creatures living here.

For those already familiar with UK marine life, Sark’s mild climate and southerly position offer the chance to spot a few species rarely found on the British mainland, such as the black-faced blenny (see British Beasts, DIVE, February 2009), soapy starfish and the purple-striped anemone prawn. Conservation is taken seriously, with divers only allowed to take scallops, and even then only with a local licence. Dredging isn’t permitted, and scallop diving and potting for shellfish are banned from the end of October until the end of March, in effect making the waters around Sark a marine reserve for almost half the year.

If metal’s your thing, there are wrecks along the coasts of nearby Guernsey and Jersey and in the deeper waters around Sark, mostly dating from the Second World War. For me, though, the best diving here is on the reefs and through the wonderful Gouliot Caves. I can think of few other British dive destinations to compete with Sark, but then again, I’m rather biased: I live there!



Need to know

When to visit
This is a tricky choice. Diving starts around May when the water temperature has reached double figures. The visibility can be affected by the usual British spring plankton bloom, but it’s the best time for nudibranchs and breeding sea birds. On land there are fewer visitors and the cliffs and woodlands are swathed in bluebells and other wildflowers. Later on in the summer, the water tends to be clearer and up to a rather pleasant 19°C, but the puffins, razorbills and guillemots have left by the middle of July.

Getting there
There are scheduled flights to Guernsey from all over the UK and several European airports, but if you’re travelling with dive kit, it’s easier to make your way to Poole or Weymouth and catch one of the Condor fast ferries (www.condorferries.co.uk). From Guernsey, the Isle of Sark Shipping Company (www.sarkshipping.info) runs several ferries a day to the island, a crossing which takes just under an hour. Manche Iles (www.manche-iles-express.com) also runs boats most days from Jersey and Normandy through the summer.

Dive centre
Sark Diving Services is run by qualified commercial diver Andy Leaman. His 10m hard boat, Starfish of Sark, has deck space for up to ten divers and plenty of dry places. Andy supplies tanks, weights and air as well as nitrox. Sark Diving Services also owns a thatched self-catering cottage that sleeps up to ten. An all-inclusive one-week dive package costs £495 per person and includes return foot passenger crossings from Poole or Weymouth by fast ferry, transfers to and from Sark, self-catering accommodation, and six days’ diving with tanks, weights and air. Transfers can also be arranged from nearby Carteret for those travelling from the Netherlands, Belgium or France. For more information, see www.sarkci.com.