Lundy Weekend Trip July 2024

We were a party of twelve divers of various abilities that congregated in the charming North Devon port of Ilfracombe on Thursday night for our long weekend diving Lundy.

Lundy is a large, forbidding island, with craggy cliffs towering out of the sea, twenty-odd miles to the west. Its position in the strong tidal pull of the Bristol Channel means the waters around it are rich in nutrients. This, combined with its status as a marine reserve where no fishing is allowed, results in abundant sea life. Better still, the three-hour round trip from Ilfracombe means that relatively few dive boats make it out there, so those that do have the place largely to themselves.

Even before we got in the water, we were aware this was a special place from the abundance of sea birds. Guillemots and razorbills pack the rocky ledges of the cliffs, while puffins fly overhead returning to their burrows on the upper slopes with sand eels for their growing nestlings.

The six dives we completed were full of variety. There were kelp forests to explore close to the shore, with deeper rocky canyons further out. There were also several interesting wrecks to dive, from the Robert, a relatively complete coaster that foundered in the 1970s, through to the remains of the Iona II, an ocean-going paddle steamer that was a blockade-runner for the Confederacy during the American Civil War and sunk in 1864.

But the undoubted star attraction was the resident population of grey seals. We all had wonderful interactions with these, especially on our second day. They first appear as apparitions, something ghostly pale flitting through the kelp. You strain to see one ahead, only to discover the two you have missed following close behind, nipping at your fins. They are delightful creatures, playful as puppies, and happy to approach any diver patient enough to let them do so in their own time.

We left Lundy after our last dive on Sunday, full of happy memories, to find the island had one more treat in store for us. On the way back to Ilfracombe the sea was flat as glass, perfect conditions to see dolphins and Lundy didn’t disappoint. A pod of them closed in on our dive boat to play in the bow wave, so near we felt we had only to reach down to touch them. The perfect end to a memorable trip.