Some of us had been curious for a while about this dive site, which
featured in a Sport Diver article a few years ago ( http://www.sportdiver.co.uk/Diving-Locations/England-South-East/Above-18m-Margate-Kent
) and is only a 90 minute drive from SE London. NB – this site is not to be
confused with Margate’s rectangular “boating pool” or lido, both of which are
further west along the coast.
Arriving at midday, the waters in the pool were calm and settled, and appeared to
have some – albeit not amazing – visibility. The tide was coming in. We parked
in the free car park (immediately adjacent to the water, and accessed via
Hodge’s Gap), Ken and Ruben got hot chocolates from the caff around the corner,
Victor did a reccy to the Walpole Bay Hotel (food until 5pm) and nearby
bowling club (lunches until 2pm and bar open later), and Sally and Clive
provided shore cover, assisted with kitting up, and made a photographic record
of the club’s first UK dive of 2016. Lee’s video of us kitting up is now
online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcoX-JGoWYg&feature=youtu.be
Unfortunately, by the time Lee and Victor had kitted up, waves were
rolling in over the pool walls, reducing visibility to zero. Entry was tricky,
and the waves made it difficult to reach any of the 3 pool walls, so we decided
to swim underwater into the centre of the pool in an unsuccessful search for
anything of interest, or at least an area with better visibility. We had to
dive hand-in-hand, as the visibility was so bad we could not even read our
computers, and there was a high risk of losing each other.
After around 20 minutes in the water (or less, according to our
computers which wouldn’t register the shallow parts of the dive), we exited via
the steps (the beach between the cliffs and pool was now submerged), with Ken
gallantly wading in to help us out. Depths of 2.5 metres were reached. Water
temperature was 6 to 7 degrees, but we didn’t feel cold due to our physical
efforts and the shortness of the dive.
Had we arrived 2 hours or so earlier, we might have had a decent dive,
however the rough seas and our decision to dive close to high tide meant we didn’t
see anything today. Still, we got the chance to test new and old kit, and learnt
useful lessons about the effect of tides and conditions at this site, about its
suitability for training and novice diving, and about on-site and nearby
facilities. We’ll be back, next time diving closer to low tide (with a possible
second dive outside the pool wall earlier or later in the day), in better
conditions.
After today’s short dive we drove down the road for ice cream at
Morelli’s in Broadstairs. We deserved it.
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