Chatham Dock Feb ´06

Heading East

Well we had an early start, we all met up in Epsom and head for J9 of the M25, Chatham is relatively easy to find via the M25 and either A2 or M 20 combinations. Journey time is about 1 hour from Epsom so not to bad…

As soon as we got there, there was limited parking space and we had to wait for some other divers to finish their dive before we could get in to the prime parking spaces.

There is a hotel that you can have a coffee in it’s called The Ship you have to go in and up the stairs the toilets are to the right of you, it’s quite expensive for a breakfast £8.10 so if you are looking for something a bit cheaper there is a “co-op” with some great warm pies.

The Site

Now on to the dive site it’s self well the dive centre is not at this site you will just find a person with a clipboard with your who should check you in if you´ve booked a dive. Chatham offers no drop in service.

There is no air fill station on site so it is a good idea if you have a second Cylinder to take it with you, but there is a place to wash your kit off after your dives so that is a bonus, the area around the dock has a few tables to sit at, once the pub has opened you have a warm place to sit but you need to be dry before you can go in and the same applies for toilets so keep that in mind when you need to go!! Also a tip take coats and gloves cause you will need them.

The dives

Well the are two types of entry the giant stride which looks interesting or the stairs which was the option that most of us took, we did our buoyancy checks and the group of us decended, we were going to follow the dock wall and have a look, when we got down there was a very silt’y bottom one kick and that was it plomes of silt so you need to stay at least 2 meters off the bottom the walls where covered in mussels and crabs as well as the occasional pipefish what beauties and I was luck enough to see a white crab whom I named “ghost crab”.

There are other docks which they are happy to take you to so that one place isn’t over dived the silt does kick up quite easily so that is why the vis is not the best probably 5m, the temp that we got was 4 degrees so it was a bit chilly in our dry suits, we did have a few nutty guys in there semi-dry who seemed fine???

There is also a boat that will take you out to the other docks so there is no swimming involved which is great of course, now lets talk about the price which is quite good at £10.00 for two dives in the dock, these dives will be enjoyed by everyone they are under 18m which is fantastic, if you are just warming up for the spring try Chatham.

Chatham Dock

Tel: 0241964281764816

Angie Davies