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Merseyside
is a coastal county in North West England. Merseyside diving offers
some interesting wrecks off it's coastline. The diving centers
offer full fledged courses at all levels.
Always dive according to your level of training.
Never enter the water without checking with the local dive center
for safety, additional information, level required for each dive
site and without being accompanied by a professional. All the
information provided is purely informative for our readers and
shouldn't be used as is to plan your immersion.
Air temperature during the year: Between 3°C
(37°F) in the winter to 22°C (71°F) in summer
Coldest time: November to January
Warmest time: June to August
Best time to dive: Summer and spring
Merseyside has a good number of diving centers and clubs.
The diving centers offer scuba diving education at all levels.
Pool training is available at most centers and
outings to inland dive sites are organised regularly for the new
trainees to practice the skills acquired during the course. The
clubs assemble each week and the members can socialise
and exchange views. Diving outings to the local waters, the rest
of the UK or even abroad are organised. The dive sites along the
North Wales coast are favoured .
Anglesey is apopular choice as it's very close
and has good diving. Inland dive sites like Dorothea, Vivian,
the Blue Planet and Delph Quarry are also popular.
The Blue Planet, in Ellesmere Port is an inland
dive site in neighbouring Cheshire. This is to date the biggest
aquarium tank in Europe. Here you can dive with sand tiger
sharks, lemon sharks and nurse sharks. There are also
lots of stingrays in the aquarium. No previous
diving experience is required but participants must be over 19
years old. Divers go down in pairs with an instructor who briefs
them and they stay underwater 30 minutes. There are not only sharks
in the main aquarium. Triggerfish, barracuda, morays and
porkfish are a few of the fish life to be seen here.
The Blue Planet Aquarium was opened in 1998 and
it has 5 theme galleries which contain 5'000 different animals.
In these galleries you can see things such as the tidal
pool, UK's biggest piranha exhibit and dart frogs just
to mention a few. There's a huge viewing area with acrylic tunnels
which take you beneath the water of the huge aquarium to see the
marine life inside.
The Delph Quarry is in Lancashire, the county
next to Merseyside. It's depth is maximum 22 metres max (72 feet)
and has quite poor visibility 2 metres (6 feet).
There are sunken objects here all with lines to make navigation
easier. You will need a torch on this dive. Despite
the poor visibility it's a good site for training.
The Capernwray inland dive site in Lancashire
is good for open water training. The depth is 20 metres maximum
(65 feet) with a visibility of 5 metres (15 feet).
Dorothea is a flooded slate and has become a
popular dive site. It has a maximum depth of 108 metres (354 feet)
but some places are pretty shallow allowing for beginners to dive.
However this site must be dived with caution considering the depths
to which it goes. There are tunnels at about 20 metres (65 feet)
and 55 metres (180 feet).
Expect temperatures from 4-5°C (39-41°F) in winter
to 18-20°C (64-68°F) in summer.
There are a few interesting wrecks like The
Lelia which is found at a depth of 20 metres (65 feet).
She sunk in 1865 on the 5th of January in bad weather. She lies
very close to the shore. The city of
Brussels is a very popular wreck, one of the
most dived in the Liverpool Bay. she sank on
January 7th 1883 after being badly damaged by the Kirby Hall.
Located off the Wirral coast she's in about 20-25
metres (65-82 feet) of water. The visibility
around is between 4 and 10 metres (13-33 feet) and there's lots
of marine life which includes ling and Pollack.
This dive is suitable for advanced divers.
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