Night dive at Criccieth Beach

Thornback ray Photo: Paul Kay Grey Gurnard Photo: Paul Kay Cuttlefish Photo: Paul Kay

NIGHT DIVE

Given favourable conditions (a balmy summer’s evening) and the right location (Criccieth beach on the coast of Tremadog Bay), night diving in North Wales might prove to be just your thing.

Criccieth’s shoreline is on the Pen Llyn a’r Sarnau Marine Special Area of Conservation and is well worthy of this European designation. As an introduction to night diving it is pretty benign, with little tidal flow that cannot be swum against and the guiding lights of Criccieth to lead the way back. Even with the tide in, depth is not likely to exceed 10m at most and, in late summer, water temperatures can edge up towards 20ºC – so diving here may be considered to be a relaxed, very pleasant affair, even at night and from a sandy shore.

Diving at Criccieth may only take in a sandy beach with a few boulders, but it is nevertheless a fascinating dive site and never more so than at night. The sandy sea bed is the hiding place of numerous animals. Some appear readily enough in daytime but others are either nocturnal or present in much greater numbers at night. It’s also a time for spotting rarities.

Once, we dived Criccieth late in the season and found small sole-like fish in large numbers – these were solennette, a small member of the sole family, which I have never seen before nor since. It was a particularly memorable dive because the bioluminescence was tremendous. When we switched off our torches, sparks flickered around us as we moved, haloing us in a ghostly light so effectively that we didn’t actually need torches to see where we were going.

Plenty of other animals cruise around at night – looking for their evening meal no doubt – with little cuttlefish darting around, sea mice adding their iridescent colour, swimming and hermit crabs, young gurnards (these can sometimes be seen camouflaged next to leaves swept into the bay from the Glaslyn and Dwryd rivers) and more common dragonets. It may be sand, but it is by no means a desert.

Local BSAC Club
LLeyn BSAC
01758 613418
www.llynscuba.org.uk