Torquay, England, United Kingdom

Babbacombe Beach

Babbacombe Beach near Torquay in south Devon is one of the most popular shore-diving sites on the South Devon coast and a fixture of UK club training. A sheltered limestone cove with a sloping pebble beach offers easy entry directly from the foreshore onto a mixed seabed of rock, kelp, sand and small reefs in 4 to 15 metres of water. The bay is well sheltered from prevailing south westerlies and is widely used for entry-level training, refresher dives and AOWD progression. The headlands flanking the beach drop into low rocky reefs cloaked in kelp forests, plumose anemones, dead man's fingers, snakelocks anemones, sponges and pink coralline algae. Resident species include ballan wrasse, corkwing wrasse, pollack, bib, tompot blennies, sand gobies, dragonets, hermit crabs, edible crabs, spider crabs, lobsters, cuttlefish in summer, the occasional small-spotted catshark and seahorse sightings have been reported in summer. Visibility ranges from 3 to 8 metres and water temperatures vary between 9 and 18 degrees Celsius across the year. Currents are weak inside the bay.