inland sites
Unfortunately we are not blessed with many inland dive sites in this area - but then why care when you have the diving around the Isle of Wight on offer. For those that want an inland site these are the options:
Horsea Island
Horsea Island Lake is home to the Defence Diving School and has been open to the public for several years now. The lake is about 1000 metres long, 100 metres wide and averages 5m in depth making it an ideal training site. Unfortunately in 2008 the decision was made to close the lake to the general public. We remain hopeful that in the near future it will re-open. Anyway, here is a bit of information about the lake and if it opens again we will let you know:
A lot of military junk has been thrown into the lake to give divers plenty
to look at and there are also several training platforms. Visibility
can vary depending on the time of year and the number of divers using it at the time, but 6 metres of visibility is not uncommon.
The marine life in the lake is quite interesting, with prolific numbers of
jellyfish, blennies, bass, crabs and freshwater eels. There is even
a lobster down there.
Chichester Lake
There is a sailing and canoeing lake in Chichester, run by Chichester Watersports Centre. The lake is about 5m deep (and really too shallow for open water training) and when we heard that Horsea was closing we went for a look. The visibility is appalling, there is very little to see and quite frankly we do not recommend that you dive it. However, should you decide that this is your only option to get wet and you are partial to sticking your head into murky water then entrance is £5 and you can contact the lake through their website by clicking here.
Gunwharf Quays
Some years ago now we were the first dive centre and dive club to dive in the ornemental ponds at Gunwharf Quays. It is about the same size as a large swimming pool, and has a silty bottom which brings visibility down to zero if you touch it. There is some marine life in the lake which has been put in there by the local Blue Reef aquarium, but at the end of the day it is still a pond. If you were really desperate you could use it for training but don't expect your students to thank you. When we dived it we found the majority of the lake was less than 5m deep, with a small section at the "waterfall" end being about 5.2m (ish) at a push. We doubt it qualifies as an open water dive site and decided not to use it for training some time ago. If you have nothing better to do, or your TV is broken and you are desperate to get wet the best option is probably to contact Gunwharf directly. The Marina Manager is Dan Jehan who can be contacted on 02392 836736 or by email on daniel.jehan@landsecurities.com
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