Mevagissey, Cornwall

Tucked away in a quiet corner of a busy working harbour and popular tourist spot lies one of the best and most picturesque shore dives along Cornwall’s southeast coast. Mevagissey’s Eastern Gullies is a hidden gem, featuring a series of seaward-running reefs offering shallow, safe and accessible diving for all experience levels.

I say ‘hidden gem’, but with the advent of Dive Fest, which takes place annually at nearby Pentewan Sands Holiday Park, it is set to become one of the best-known shore dives in the area.

Concealed behind the Harbour Master’s office on the eastern outer pier, the site is marked by an enormous rock known as the Island situated directly in front of a small permit-only parking bay. After checking in with the Harbour Master prior to diving, you can avoid parking tickets by unloading your kit and driving to the opposite side of the pier, where there is a pay-and-display car park, leaving a short walk back. There’s plenty of room to kit up along the harbour wall.

Once in the water via the stone steps, the site is easily navigable, with submerged reefs stretching out from the shore in a straight line to the east. High water offers the best conditions to access the site; due to its sheltered position, only an easterly swell is likely to curtail diving.

With an average depth of about 10m, there’s no pressing need to cover the area at speed, making it an ideal place for trainees or newly qualified divers out to increase their experience levels. But far from just being a starter dive, the Eastern Gullies’ sea bed of light sand and pebble combined with kelp-topped rocks makes it an ideal habitat for a ‘who’s who’ of UK marine life, including pipefish, wrasse, lobster, spider crabs and cuttlefish.

By following the natural contours of the site and using the gaps in the reef wall to navigate, you can make your way from reef to reef and onto the undoubted highlight of the dive – a narrow diver-sized crevice between two rock faces that is nicknamed the Dual Carriageway. Although the crevice is somewhat obscured by kelp, a keen eye and a good rummage around will lead you to the hidden entrance and a rewarding tunnel-like 30m swim.

A nearby secondary carriageway running almost parallel gradually opens out to reveal a large amphitheatre known as the Onion Bowl. Featuring walls of dead men’s fingers and an impressive colony of snakelock anemones in the nearby kelp, the bowl is ideal for underwater photography, with plenty of subject matter for both wide-angle and macro snappers.

After returning via the carriageway, a short detour through the narrow surge gulley between the harbour wall and semi-submerged rock offers a relaxing end to the dive, with the gentle current flowing between the two making it easy to get back to the steps and the pier.

For non-divers, there are plenty of shops, cafés and pubs and a museum to visit around the harbour, along with a seawater aquarium with many of the exhibits donated from the catchnets of local fishermen. ■

NEED TO KNOW

Video footage See a video of this dive at www. divemagazine.co.uk/mevagissey

DIRECTIONS
From the east, head for St Austell via the A30/A391. Turn onto the A390, and then take the B3273 Pentewan Road towards Mevagissey. In the village, turn left into Chapel Square, then right into Church Street. Follow signs for the harbour, turn left onto The Cliff and continue towards the Mevagissey Museum on the inner harbour’s East Wharf. The Harbour Master’s Office is situated at the narrow entrance to the outer harbour. Immediately behind is the dive site.

TIDAL AND WEATHER CONSIDERATIONS
High water provides the optimum conditions for diving. As it’s a relatively sheltered site, protected by the harbour wall on one side and a headland on the other, only an easterly is liable to affect diving.

AIR FILLS
Sal Diving Company, Pentewan (01726 844640; www.saldivingcompany.com)

PARKING
Convenient pay-and-display parking is available on the opposite side of the harbour, with more spaces further away in the centre of town.

CLUBS
For a list of local BSAC clubs, see www.bsac.com.

DIVE FEST
The next Dive Fest takes place at Pentewan Sands Holiday Park over the long weekend of 30 April to 3 May 2010. To book tickets, see www.divefest.co.uk.