A Milky Ray wrapper? Think again!
So, heres a fun fact for you to start. Did you know that the Atlantic Ocean, North Sea, Norwegian Sea and Mediterranean all join and have no barriers? Which means, unlike the human population at the moment, marine life is free to travel without any travel restrictions! The reason for the comment is to point out that we do in fact have a vast amount of cool marine life in our own local oceans.
Some of you that have not dived in the UK, may be thinking that the only native species we have are the lesser spotted coke bottles, trolley fish and the ‘milky ray’ wrapper, but you are massively wrong. For a start, there are 40 species of shark known to reside in the UK waters… the most common being the mako, blue shark and basking (not strictly a shark, but still pretty awesome!)
Regular sightings of bottlenose dolphins, lobsters, seals, cuttlefish, and tonnes of fish…I will give the tompot blenny a special shout out as it’s my favourite to find on a dive! But, even orcas and whales come within our local waters each year. Our local coastline is amazing, and the dive sites are in a relatively good condition and unspoilt. We even have a wide variety of corals.. I know right, reefs in the UK, mind blowing!
The UK waters are home to cold-water corals over 8,000 years old and what makes these corals even more special is that they only grow between 4-25mm per year… many of them recorded to begin to grow during the last ice age. So anyone thinking the UK has nothing special to see… you are massively wrong.
So we have the corals, the marine life, lets not forget the vast amount of wrecks here too. The UK has some of the most famous wreck sights, from Scapa flow to the lost cargo ships around the Menai Strait, with thousands more that have never been discovered…. unsurprising since we have only explored 7% of the ocean and the UK sadly and wrongly isn’t up most divers top dive site list!
All of this can be explored all around the UK, right here, on your doorstep. So travel may be off the cards at the moment, but now is the perfect opportunity for those of you that have not dived in the UK, to jump in and give it a go!
Thanks to Clare at www.duttonsdivers.com for this great post!
