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Scuba Diving Northern Ireland, UK, Europe
Reader Reviews:
Dive Site: North Wall
Location: Rathlin Island, Northern Ireland
Description: Wall dive
Depth: 20 - 200m + metres (65 - 650 feet)
Visibility: Up to 40 metres (130 feet)
Rating: *****
The scenery is stunning, and some of the clearest water local to the UK you'll get to dive. Add to this the feeling of depth with the drop off, and the arches etc and this is one place I haven't dived enough. We've been lucky and boat dived it a few times during each visit, as it's too good to miss. Off the Northern Ireland coast, between the 7 Glens of Antrim and Donegal rests Ballycastle, and offshore to this the island of Rathlin. A very hard place, with towering rock stacks buzzed by sea birds it's a wild north coast and sometimes uninviting.
Currents can be fierce at times where they hit the North Wall of Rathlin and go either east or west, circling around. Even during slack periods this maelstrom sits uneasy and can throw the lax diver (been there). It takes careful planning to dive the area and once seen never forgotten. The wall starts at the shoreline with a steep descent to 20m, after which it literally disappears into nothingness! The pretty kelp garden suddenly and abruptly terminates in a sheer wall plummeting to 200m so you really need to have every piece of equipment clipped on!
The visibility can be absolutely stunning at easily over 40m making this one of the most truly awesome dives in the UK & Ireland. The sheer vertical walls have masses of deadman's finders, sponges and such like. The wall undulates vertically and following the contours is paramount, move 3m away from it and you can be in serious current trouble!
Cuckoo and other wrasse varieties are all over the place and at 28-34m is a truly spectacular underwater sea arch. Below this in 35-40m are a series of large sea caverns. Eventually it's time to ascend into the kelp forest above, at 20m, where sea hen may be found, with a variety of mackerel, pollack, and sometimes scores of moon jellyfish.
Tony Gilbert
The North Wall on Rathlin Island featured briefly in BBC Northern Ireland's series Waterworld (2006). Viz 30m+, colours are outstanding. Down currents make this a particularly challenging dive. Vertical walls, caves and swimthroughs. A proposed WWF world biodiversity hotspot. We discovered 14 new sponge species last year, new to science. Probably the best non-wreck dive in the UK.
Joe Breen
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