| Beacon Cove |
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Beacon Cove This is a great site for taking a sneaky dip while your friends/family take a trip around the excellent Living Coasts coastal zoo. Beacon Cove in Victorian times was used for the ‘ladies’ of the time to bathe in the sea from their bathing platforms – basically a beach hut on wheels that was pushed into the sea so that no flesh was ever on display!
Today Beacon Cove has had a recent facelift thanks to the Living Coasts project and it is a real gem amongst Torbay’s beaches, small but quiet and very sheltered. There is actually a very old bylaw banning the use of ‘mechanical breathing apparatus’ from being used, but all the years I’ve been diving here, and seeing others dive off the beach, no one has ever tried to enforce it. The area I’m interested in for this guide is between the Millstones and Saddle Rock which has recently been buoyed off as a Sea Grass bed which will hopefully reduce the number of people anchoring up in this delightful little bay. From the Living Coasts car park you have about a 150m walk down to the fairly steep pebble beach. Looking out you will see the Millstones rock to the right (south) and the very tall and steep Saddle Rock about 300m away to the left (south-east). I’m going to take you on a circular tour of this bay, which will only get you about 10m on a high tide, so it’s great for novices as there are no currents to worry about at all here. We will traverse anti-clockwise starting at the pebble beach. Enter the water and immediately head down having taken a bearing on the Millstones (or if your navigation isn’t up to much you could always try to surface swim there) and you will initially swim over pebbles and larger boulders. In the summer there is a fair bit of Bootlace Weed which I always find beautiful to look at when the vis is good and the sun’s rays are dancing between the thin fronds. Staying on your bearing the boulders will eventually give way to sand. Initially you may find it dull, but watch out for Brittle Stars, anemones and worms – Myxicola Infumdibulum. Soon enough you’ll get to the rock where you will find a smattering of Sea Squirts and encrusting sponges, though due to the shallow and sheltered nature of the site the kelp does tend to be quite thick. From here head due east until you pick up the start of the Sea Grass bed. You may pass a mooring buoy or two, and take some time to see the stunning Sea Squirts that make these miniature reefs their home. Once you find the Sea Grass, turn a little to your right and head south-east. Keep over the Sea Grass and watch out for Sand Stars, Plaice, Scallops, Hermit Crabs, Pipefish and Nudibranchs. Please keep your buoyancy under control as this is a very delicate eco-system that needs all the help it can get. This will be the deepest part of the dive, at 8 – 9m. When you get to the end of the Sea Grass (or any-time you want to) turn left to head north-east, staying with the Sea Grass, until you pick up the line of pebbles and boulders that line the cliffs. Here you will see Spiny Spider Crabs, Wrasse and juvenile Pollack in amongst the weed at about 6 – 7m. Once at this band of rocks, turn left again to head north-west and keep on that bearing until you reach the beach again. It’s a simple, easy little dive which can surprise those willing to look closely for their marine life. The beach is nice and clean and the parking fairly easy, but the nearest toilet is about 300m away down by the harbour side. Even though there are 5 knot buoys here I would recommend an SMB just to err on the safe side. This whole area can also be dived from the Saddle Rock end of this little bay, from Peaked Tor Cove, but this involves a much longer walk and a lot of steep steps. So unless you’re heading over to London Arch, I would use Beacon Cove itself as your base. |
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