PAIGNTON PIER

A definite family day out, with the added bonus of a nice little dive/snorkel thrown in :-) Paignton Beach is a wonderful mile-long stretch of soft sand with a shallow sloping seabed, no currents, good beach amenities... and the UK's 3rd longest pier. As a family day out at the sea-side it has just about everything you could want, but we will turn out attention to the pier as a dive destination while everyone else builds sand-castles and gets sun-burn!

Firstly, this is not an arduous, deep, or challenging dive... in fact it is very shallow and quite probably the you will only have the height of the tide plus a metre or two (at most 7 - 8m at spring high tide). That said, it is a novel site and worth checking out if you happen to be passing, but probably not worth planning a long trip for. Getting to Paignton is easy, and parking in the off-season (Oct-Apr) is easily available right along side the beach. During the summer months you will have to park some way away and carry your kit, local paring is signposted.

So, to the dive; I would recommend getting kitted up on the concrete promenade as the beach is of fine sand likely to get into all the places you least want it. Then it is up to you how to proceed; you can see the structure of the piles supporting the pier stretching out into the water in front of you. I tend to plan a circular dive that follows the pilings in a clockwise manner, keeping the metal at my right shoulder all the while.

Basically this dive is the same the while way though, soft sand beneath you, and the Muscle/Barnacle encrusted structure all around you. Half way along the length of the pier it gets wider and here is really is worth getting right under the metal beams to have a good look around you... it's like being inside a giant Macarno set. If you do decide to get under the pier, please be careful of discarded nets or fishing line, normally this is not a problem, but Torbay does have a large fishing fleet so you never know what's drifting around. If you are snorkelling, I would urge EXTREME caution, and don't forget to dive with a buddy and always have a knife on your belt.

At the bases of the deeper legs of metal, there are many Muscle beds that attract Common Starfish, Hermit Crabs, Common Shore Crabs and the odd Pipefish. If you are not a lover of Kelp then this is a dive for you! There is very little weed at all on the structure, which give a fantastically clear view on a good day. The sand all around is home to a few small anemones, and take some time to look around the metal structure for Blennies. It is also worth occasionally looking around for shoals of Sand Eel and Mullet. (Spearo's, this is a good site for Mullet ;-)

You will have guessed by now that this is not an adventurous dive... and I cannot recommend a reccie out onto the sand. Trust me when I tell you there is nothing out there, don't waste your time! It is much more fun looking around for coins that some unlucky tourist will have dropped thought the wooden boards high above you, the first dive I did here at the end of a busy weekend netted me £6! If you have metal detector you might get even luckier.

To complete your dive just turn around and head straight back in, dawdling along the way to see what you can see. With a maximum depth of about 8m, bottom time isn't much of an issue, and if you stay on the bottom you can do your safety stop on your way back in.

I have also dived the pier as a night dive and I saw even more life here than on my other trips. Plaice, Dab, Little Cuttle (6 of them!), Squid and Bass hunting in my torch beam. Stunning!

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