Plymouth Sound & HMS Scylla · United Kingdom · Reef · Wall
Eddystone
Walls of jewel anemones with sea fans on the boulders below
Photo: Ghost Fishing UK · Public domain
The Eddystone Rocks are an extensive offshore reef under the Eddystone Lighthouse, south-south-west of Plymouth Sound. The diving is on walls and boulders rather than wrecks, with anemone-covered rock faces, sea fans and the small fish and crustaceans of a British reef in open water.
Also known as Eddystone Reef, Eddystone Rocks.
Where it is and how deep
50.1838° N, 4.2680° WApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
A dive can settle on the 24 m contour and follow it around the reef for about 50 minutes. The walls are covered with jewel anemones, and sea fans grow on the boulders below them. Tompot blennies sit in the rock, and a close look turns up ling and crawfish.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Good | Good |
Season follows Plymouth Sound & HMS Scylla: Diving runs all year when the wind allows; July to September brings the warmest water and the blue shark snorkel trips.
Photos from Eddystone
Steve Fareham · CC BY-SA 2.0
Dive videos
Sue's first Eddystone dive · Richard Knights on YouTube
Sources
- Plymouth wrecks with InDeep — Tyneside BSAC
- Eddystone Lighthouse — Wikipedia
- OpenStreetMap — OpenStreetMap
Photo credits
- Four divers in drysuits sit on a dive boat deck among cylinders, sorting a tangle of green net into red crates by Ghost Fishing UK, Public domain, via Openverse
- A tall granite lighthouse and the stump of an older tower rise from the sea under a cloudy sky by Steve Fareham, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
More dive sites in Plymouth Sound & HMS Scylla
Old diver-training rigs and wreckage scattered around the base of a sea fort
A luxury steam yacht scuttled near the Shag Stone for divers
A whole frigate laid down on sand as Europe's first artificial diving reef
A Liberty ship that went down in the Second World War, beside the Scylla
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