Kinlochbervie & the North-West Highlands · United Kingdom · Reef
Handa Island
Large swim-throughs and huge gullies cut into the island's rock
Photo: Colin Park · CC BY-SA 2.0
Handa Island is a rocky island south of Kinlochbervie with several scenic rocky sites dived by boat. Divers go for the underwater architecture: large swim-throughs, rocky overhangs and huge gullies cut into the rock, with an abundance of sea life and none of the sites deeper than 30 m.
0Where it is and how deep
58.3809° N, 5.1886° WApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
Several separate rocky sites sit at the island, and none of them goes deeper than 30 m. The rock is broken by large swim-throughs, overhangs and huge gullies, and the sites hold an abundance of sea life.
Marine life and season
The sources we used don't single out particular species here.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair | Fair | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Fair |
Season follows Kinlochbervie & the North-West Highlands: Winter diving keeps to the sheltered sea lochs; the exposed north-west sites belong to the rest of the year.
Dive videos
Diving Handa island with DiveKLB, Kinlochbervie · Dive KLB ' on YouTube
Diving with the Guillimots and Razorbills at Handa Island with DiveKLB · Dive KLB ' on YouTube
Questions divers ask
How is Handa Island dived from Kinlochbervie?+
By boat: Handa Island's sites are dived from the Kinlochbervie hardboat, and the deepest of them reach 30 m, which suits Advanced Open Water divers.
Sources
- Dive Sites — Kinlochbervie Diving Expeditions
- Handa Island — OpenStreetMap
Photo credits
- Sheer dark sea cliffs streaked white with birds drop into calm blue water, with surf breaking at their foot by Colin Park, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
More dive sites in Kinlochbervie & the North-West Highlands
Orange-clubbed, polycera, fried-egg and sea-lemon nudibranchs on one dive
Wall
Cliffs and boulders covered in loch anemones and peacock worms
Drifting beneath the Kylesku bridge on the tide
Reef
Gullies and swim-throughs, often teeming with shoals of fish and dogfish
Wreck
Wreck site of the largest Italian Renaissance pottery find in Scotland
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Quartz crystals that sparkle in the rocks around the entry