Selsey, England, United Kingdom

Mulberry Harbour

The Mulberry Harbour at Pagham, also known as the Pagham Mulberry, is a section of one of the prefabricated WWII portable harbours built for the D-Day landings, abandoned during a storm while being towed to Normandy in June 1944 and never recovered. The concrete and steel caisson, known as a Phoenix unit, lies upright on a sand and shingle bottom at about 12 metres just off Pagham Beach in West Sussex. The wreck is one of the most accessible WWII relics in the United Kingdom, suitable as a confined or shallow training dive in good conditions. The structure is colonised with plumose anemones, snakelocks anemones, dead man's fingers, sponges, hydroids and small kelp, and supports populations of ballan wrasse, corkwing wrasse, pollack, bib, conger eels, tompot blennies, edible crabs and lobsters. Visibility ranges from 3 to 8 metres and water temperatures vary between 10 and 18 degrees Celsius. Currents are weak. Charter boats run from Selsey and Bognor Regis. The site has historical significance as a tangible link to D-Day operations.