Isles of Scilly

The diving is from boats working out of St Mary's and St Martin's. Charters run a week at a time, usually five or six days with a Saturday changeover, for qualified and experienced groups of up to 10 divers. A typical day starts early with the first dive around 8.30am, fits in a second dive and has divers back on the island by 2 or 3pm. Wind and weather decide which sites the boat can reach, and exposed outer rocks such as Bishop Rock are touch and go.

Underwater the islands offer two kinds of diving. The wrecks range from cargo steamers lost in dense fog, now heavily scavenged and broken up, to the Cita, a cargo ship that struck the rocks off St Mary's in 1997. Between the wrecks are drop-offs, pinnacles and gullies, and deep sheer walls encrusted with jewel anemones. Starfish, nudibranchs, crabs and cuttlefish live on the rock, with shoals of bream and wrasse above. Visibility reaches about 25 m on good days.

Atlantic grey seals are the other draw, and the islands are known for how playful they are. The seal dive in the Eastern Isles is a shallow, easy one: divers settle on a rocky platform in about 5 m of water and wait for the animals to come close. Seals also turn up on the wrecks, where the upturned, twisted decks of the Cita are home to cuckoo wrasse. In settled summer weather the sea can lie flat calm, with the water around 14°C (57°F).

The islands suit a cold-water diver who wants variety in one week: shallow wreck sections for building depth experience, deeper hulls for advanced divers, and both macro life and wide-angle wreckage for photographers. Divers who want to dive out of season should look elsewhere, since the charters run in summer, book by the week and, with few operators, need booking well in advance.