Beaumaris, Wales, United Kingdom

Penmon Point

Penmon Point is at the eastern tip of Anglesey, where the Menai Strait meets the open Irish Sea. The site is best known to British divers for the rocky reefs and tidal gullies running off the lighthouse and Trwyn Du, where tidal currents accelerate to several knots at peak flow but feed an exceptional richness of filter-feeding life. Dives are run only at slack water and are typically drift profiles along the reef edge in 8 to 18 metres of water on rock and gravel substrate. Plumose anemones, dead man's fingers, jewel anemones, sponges, hydroids and pink coralline algae cover the rocks, with kelp forests on the shallower margins. Resident species include ballan wrasse, cuckoo wrasse, pollack, bib, conger eels, tompot blennies, lobsters, edible crabs and spider crabs, with porpoises occasionally seen at the surface. Visibility ranges from 3 to 8 metres and water temperatures sit between 9 and 16 degrees Celsius. The site is suitable for drift-experienced AOWD divers and is run from Beaumaris charter boats.