Sark, the Best Kept Secret in British Diving
Picture this. You’re finning gently along a reef wall
encrusted with anemones and sponges in a rainbow of colours. Fan corals
waft hypnotically backwards and forwards in the current and, as you look
up, you see the sun shimmering on the surface more than twenty metres
above. As you look down again an impossibly iridescent blue and orange
fish has appeared from nowhere and seems to be admiring himself in the
reflection of your mask. Is this the Red Sea or some far flung corner of
the Caribbean? No, this is Sark, a tiny island in the English Channel.
At just three miles long and a little over a mile wide, Sark is one of the smallest Channel Islands. Surrounded by sheer granite cliffs, the coastline is a rugged mixture of tiny bays and rock stacks littered with offshore reefs and half submerged pinnacles. The thirty foot tidal range makes for some exhilarating drift dives but, more importantly, this twice daily surge of seawater supports an incredibly rich array of marine life. Jewel anemones feature heavily on most dives, carpeting the walls with their glowing colours. Corals also grow well here from the tiny Devonshire cup corals to the more conspicuous sea fans. In sheltered areas the soft coral red fingers thrives, smothering great swathes of rock with fleshy pink digits and their fluffy white polyps. Among this wealth of animal growth countless sponges, hydroids and bryozoans battle for space and provide food for those tiny, colourful carnivores, the nudibranchs. The cracks and crevices are home to lobster and crab while crawfish are occasionally encountered watching the world go by from a rocky ledge.
Away from the
reefs the marine life is equally fascinating. The gleaming shingle banks
are home to well camouflaged turbot, brill, plaice and other flatfish as
well as various rays. Spiny starfish, often well over a foot across,
prowl the seabed in search of the scallops that lie half-buried in the
shingle. Above all of this glittering shoals of sand eel swirl in the
clear blue-green water, more often than not watched by predatory pollack,
bass and cuttlefish.
The island’s
southerly position means that, as well as having many of these northern
European species, Sark has a distinctly continental feel beneath the
waves. Look out for the stunning sunset cup coral Leptopsammia
pruvoti, the pink soft coral Parerythropodium coralloides and
the red starfish Echinaster sepositus, all of which are rarely
seen around the British mainland. The black-face blenny is also worth
watching for, especially in early summer when the bright yellow male
attracts his mate with an elaborate courtship dance. The most dazzling
fish of all though is obvious all year round. Cuckoo wrasse live in
harems of several females and one male. The girls are colourful enough,
peachy-orange with natty black and white bars along their backs, but
it’s the boys that steal the show. Vivid turquoise marbled with electric
blue and streaks of almost luminous orange, they draw even more
attention to themselves in spring by displaying a brilliant white patch
on their head which dazzles then fades in seconds. What makes these
handsome chaps even more interesting is that they all begin life as
females. At the age of at least seven years some change sex and colour
and become fully functional males. Exactly what triggers this change of
heart, or rather sex organs, isn’t known for certain but it may well
happen if the group’s existing male is lost. Both the males and the
females are hugely inquisitive and will often approach within touching
distance of divers. These wrasse, along with the rest of the marine
life, combined with the clear waters around Sark, make the island an
underwater photographer’s paradise.
If your interest lies in wrecks rather than reefs, Sark also makes a good diving destination being less than an hour’s boat journey from the other Channel Islands. Many of the wrecks around here date back to the Second World War when the Islands were occupied by German forces. The Dutch Rhine barge Oost Vlaanderen arrived off St Peter Port, the capital of Guernsey, in May 1943 laden with cement and a few guns. Before she reached the safety of the harbour she was attacked by allied aircraft and sank within minutes. She sits upright in thirty metres of water with a sea fan growing from her bow like a figure head. Oaten-pipe hydroids cover much of the wreck softening the lines of the old ship and giving her pale, eerie appearance. Like most of the wrecks here, she is cloaked in shoals of pouting and any available pipes or holes are home to some alarmingly large conger eels. Unusually the holds of the cement wreck, as she is known locally, are popular with red mullet who are often dig in the silt where the cargo once lay.
Off Jersey is
another war wreck, the freighter Schockland. Larger than the
cement wreck, a hundred and thirty six lives were lost when she struck
rocks southwest of St Helier while waiting to sail for St Malo in nearby
France. The remains of her cargo of girders and sacks of cement are
still visible in the holds and much of the ship is recognisable,
including an impressive stern, rudder and propeller. In recent years she
has begun to deteriorate noticeably but her size, history and excellent
marine life still make her one of the most popular wrecks in the Channel
Islands.
Off the north cast of Jersey lies a younger wreck, the Heron. She sank in 1961 on route for England with a cargo of fresh produce, mostly tomatoes. Her location remained a mystery for over forty years until she was discovered by local fishermen. Sitting upright close to the Paternosters, the reef that caused the fatal damage, she is fairly intact. Interestingly she doesn’t seem to have attracted the wealth of marine life found on the war wrecks but there’s no shortage of pouting milling around in the engine room. Closer inspection of the superstructure reveals thousands of tiny cup corals and there are plenty of sea fans, including those growing on the stove and the tiled kitchen floor. A little further to the east lie the Striker, the Olway and La Mauve, smaller ships that have been deliberately sunk by Jersey Harbour Department in the last ten years as part of an artificial reef programme. The wrecks have proved popular with local marine life and, though lacking the history of 'real’ shipwrecks, they make interesting dives.
My favourite wreck
lies among the Humps, a treacherous fringe of rocks stretching north
from the island of Herm. The cargo ship Forth, a twin-masted
steam schooner, struck the reef in thick fog in the early hours of an
August morning in 1906. After almost a century on the seabed she is well
broken but her intact stern and boiler and jumble of other wreckage is
teeming with life from tompot blennies and sea squirts to corals and the
inimitable cuckoo wrasse. Lying in just eighteen metres of water on a
bright shingle seabed she lacks the eerie gloom of the larger, deeper
wrecks and her depth allows for a much longer dive. If shallow, scenic
dives appeal then the Gouliot Caves are a must. Only about thirty metres
long, the caves pierce the Gouliot headland on the eastern corner of the
main island and for at least half their length are open to fresh air
from above. At half tide the water that normally streams through the
caves slackens and allows what I think is the best five metre dive in
the world. Shoals of large pollack are often encountered and the walls
are plastered with anemones in every conceivable hue, along with bright
yellow sponges and white soft corals. It’s easy to see why the local
refer to these as the Jewel Caves.
As wonderful as it is, there’s so much more to Sark than simply diving. A visit here is a chance to experience life on this unspoilt, car-free island. The diving is governed completely by the tides but early morning starts are virtually unheard of, leaving plenty of time to explore. Walking or cycling are the only ways to get around unless you spoil yourself and hire a horse-drawn carriage and driver. There are miles of picturesque footpath to discover both along the coast and through the countryside. If you’re interested in land based flora and fauna there are endless wildflowers and butterflies and huge bush-crickets that chirp from the hedgerows after dusk giving the summer evenings a distinctly exotic air. From the sea you’ll glimpse puffins, guillemots, razorbills and fulmars and, if you’re really lucky, a breath-taking display of aerobatics from the resident peregrine falcons. Add to this a choice of eating places offering mouth watering cream teas to the finest local seafood as well as a pub at the top of the harbour hill, and you can see why Sark is one of the best kept secrets in British diving.
Getting there
There are scheduled flights to Guernsey from all over the UK and several European airports but if you’re travelling with dive kit it’s easier to make your way to Poole or Weymouth and catch one of the Condor fast ferries. From Guernsey the Isle of Sark Shipping Company run several ferries a day to the island, a crossing which takes just under an hour.
Sark Diving Services
Sark diving services is run by Andy Leaman, a commercially qualified diver who has over twenty years experience diving in and navigating the waters around the Channel Islands. His ten meter hard boat, the Starfish, is well equipped with safety gear and has ample deck space for up to ten divers and plenty of dry places for clothes, cameras, sandwiches and the like. There’s even a stove on board for that essential post dive cuppa and, of course, there’s a loo. Andy supplies tanks, weights and air as well as Nitrox. Sark Diving Services also own a charming thatched self-catering cottage that sleeps up to ten. An all inclusive one week dive package costs £385 per person and includes return crossings from Poole or Weymouth by fast ferry, transfers to and from Sark, self-catering accommodation, six days diving with two dives a day and tanks, weights and air. (Transfers can also be arranged from the nearby French coast)
Sark Diving Services, Le Grande Fort, Sark, Channel Islands GY9 0SF Tel +44(0)1481 832565
Sark Tourism - www.sark-tourism.com
Tel + 44 (0)1534 864541 Mobile + 44 (0)77977 20002 sue@suedalyproductions.com
